If they say that He knows His effect and knows Himself, it follows that His knowledge of the one is not His knowledge of the other.

As for their claim that His knowledge of the effect is included in His knowledge of the cause, he has refuted it on several grounds.

First, according to them, knowledge is something negative, as are immateriality and non-absence. Negation does not include knowledge of things. What he says here is correct, alongside the earlier point that this cause is not itself knowledge: it is neither knowledge nor something that includes knowledge.

To suppose that this negation is knowledge would be a false supposition. On that supposition, however, can it be said to include other negations? This is something they might dispute with him. But he can say that one negation includes another only when it is broader in scope. Here, however, there is no general negation that would include a particular negation. Rather, what they negate is an attribute additional to His essence, matter in relation to Him, or absence in relation to Him. All of these are particular negations that do not include a general negation.

Second, he has explained to them that what is included within something else is what it signifies by inclusion, not by necessary implication. Something that signifies another by necessary implication rather than inclusion does not encompass it, nor is the latter included within it.

Examples are the necessary concomitants external to an essence according to their principles, such as the capacity for laughter. Human nature does not encompass the capacity for laughter, nor does knowledge of human nature encompass knowledge of that capacity. For human nature signifies it neither by correspondence nor by inclusion; rather, its signification is