existing thing that is absent from itself, although many existing things do not know themselves. Thus, the reality of knowledge is distinct from the reality of non-absence.

If they say, “We only said that it is His not being absent from His immaterial essence,” they may be answered in several ways:

First: If the reality of knowledge were non-absence, this would not differ from one object of knowledge to another. For knowledge relates to every object of knowledge, and everything can be known and is not absent from itself. Everything would therefore have to know itself. Indeed, it would know itself more surely than another could know it, since it is more surely not absent from itself than from another.

Second: Just as a thing is not absent from itself, it may also not be absent from something else. If knowledge were non-absence, then anything present to something would have to know that thing.

Third: It may be asked: When you say, “His not being absent from His immaterial essence,” what do you mean by “immaterial”? If you mean His essence as apprehended by the intellect or known, or as capable of being apprehended or known, or similar expressions indicating that He knows or is known, or can know or be known… then the statement would mean that it is His not being absent from His essence, which knows or is known, or can be so.

It is evident that this, too, is a negation. Thus, anything whose essence knows and is known,