are in existence, and those of them that no longer exist after having existed, and that they once existed. This does not exceed His capacity, nor does He change through it, nor is He diminished or made more perfect. Rather, He possesses this knowledge as He wills, in accordance with His power and will concerning His creation. No argument establishes its impossibility: not an argument attributing incapacity to Him, for that is refuted by the evidence of creation.

His power to create is evidence of His power to know, since He is the Creator of everything, and creation requires greater power than knowledge. If attributing incapacity to Him is untenable with regard to creation, it is all the more untenable with regard to knowledge. How could it be otherwise, when most of them say that Allah’s knowledge is His power? His power encompasses everything in creation, so why should it be surprising that He encompasses everything in knowledge?

Nor can its impossibility be established by an argument from His transcendence, for His knowledge of anything in His creation neither impairs nor harms Him. There is nothing in it opposed or dissimilar to Him. His perfection does not derive from this knowledge; rather, this knowledge derives from His perfection, as has been said.

This answer does, however, make a certain concession. For even if we supposed that He had some perfection through this knowledge, as has been suggested, that would entail no imperfection in Him, since everything is from Him and proceeds from Him. His perfection through what is from Him and proceeds from Him is therefore, in reality, His perfection through His own essence.

The statement that, were it not for things other than Him, He would not possess such a degree of perfection would have some force only if those things were not from Him and did not proceed from Him. But since they are from Him, this entails no detriment. For it is as though one said: “Were it not for Him—I mean, were it not for His essence—He would not be in such a state,” because