Nor has any Muslim said that Allah does not know created things unless they inhere in His essence, or something identical in reality to these created things inheres in His essence. If any of his heretical predecessors said something of this kind, let him take the matter up with that person. As for our Muslim predecessors, none of them ever said any such thing.

If, however, by saying “without their inhering in Him,” he means that no knowledge of them subsists in Him, and that His essence is in the same state when He knows them as it would be if He were supposed not to know them, then this is false, and its falsity is self-evident. If he affirms knowledge of all created things as an attribute of the Lord, distinct from the created things known, then the point at issue here is established. A detailed discussion of this belongs elsewhere.

[The Thirteenth Argument]

He says:

“With this established, I say: You have learned that the First apprehends Himself intellectually, with no distinction in existence between His essence and His intellectual apprehension of Himself, though they are distinguishable in the conceptions of those who consider them, as explained earlier. You have also judged that His intellectual apprehension of Himself is the cause of His intellectual apprehension of the first effect.

“If, then, you judge the two causes—namely, His essence and His intellectual apprehension of Himself—to be one and the same in existence, without distinction, then judge the two effects likewise—namely, the first effect and the First’s intellectual apprehension of it—to be one and the same in existence, without any distinction that would entail one being separate from the First and the other subsisting in Him.

“Just as you have judged the distinction between the two causes to be purely conceptual, judge the distinction between the two effects to be so as well.”