Thus, the statement, “A thing’s being present to its agent differs from its being present to its recipient,” implies that what is present to the agent is the very same thing that is present to the recipient, and that only the two modes of presence differ.

But this is not so. A thing’s being present to its agent means that its actual, created existence is present to him, as the worlds are present to the Lord of the worlds. All created things are present to Him as an effect is present to its agent—indeed, in a manner in which no one resembles Him, for no one creates as He creates.

As for what is received being present to its recipient, what is meant here is only that knowledge of these created things is present to the one who knows them. Knowledge is present to him as something received is present to its recipient. It is not meant that the created things themselves are present to him in this way, such that they inhere in him and he is their locus. That is how matters stand.

[The Twelfth Argument]

It may be said: If this mode of presence differs from that mode of presence, what purpose does this serve for you? What proof does it provide that, if the effects—which are created things—are present to the Creator who created them without any awareness of them subsisting in Him at all—His essence being the same without knowledge of them as it is with knowledge of them—He would thereby know them without anything inhering in Him?

Regarding his statement, “Thus He apprehends them intellectually without their inhering in Him,” he should be told: No one has stipulated that the things themselves must inhere in Him. If this person is refuting someone who places within Him something resembling them in definition and reality, then we support him in that, and there is no need for what he has mentioned.