the intelligible form, then this is false.

For apprehending it requires that it be present to him, and the intelligible form cannot be present to him unless it subsists in him. Indeed, the intelligible form can only inhere in a human being; it can never be present to him without inhering in him.

Likewise, knowledge must subsist in every knower. Knowledge cannot be present to a knower without subsisting in him, for knowledge does not subsist independently. Even if it were assumed to subsist independently, it would not belong exclusively to one essence rather than another. An essence therefore cannot know through knowledge unless that knowledge subsists in it.

This is among the arguments used to refute Jahm when he said that the Lord knows through knowledge that does not subsist in Him, because attributes cannot subsist in Him. The same argument was used to refute the Basran Muʿtazilah’s assertion that He wills through a will that does not subsist in Him.

The position of this al-Tūsī is worse than Jahm’s. For although Jahm said that He knows through knowledge that does not subsist in Him, he did not identify knowledge with the object known. This man, however, makes Him know through knowledge separate from Him, and identifies that knowledge with the object known.

For the position of those philosophers who deny the attributes is, in reality, of the same kind as that of the Jahmiyyah who deny them. Both share in denying the divine attributes, but differ on questions of temporal origination and eternity.

This is why Ibn Sīnā advised adhering to the position of those who deny the attributes: temporal origination is impossible on their premises, so their denial provides him with an argument against them, unlike those who affirm