How, then, could One whose knowledge is the most perfect knowledge, and who knows the cause of every existent, fail to know the most complete evidence indicating every existent?

Were it supposed that one of us knew the Lord as He truly is, he would know everything. Our faculties, however, are incapable of this.

As for Him, glorified be He, He knows Himself. His own being entails every existent, creates everything, and necessitates everything through His will and power. In their language, it is the cause of everything.

He, glorified be He, is the evidence and demonstration for everything in this respect, and also insofar as He directs His servants through what He makes known to them, His guidance, and His speech. Thus, if He, glorified be He, knows Himself—His own being, which entails everything, is evidence for everything, and necessitates everything, or, in their terminology, is the cause of everything—He must know everything. Otherwise, He would not know Himself, but would know only some aspects of Himself, whereas the supposition is that He knows Himself.

It may then be said: whatever necessitates His knowledge of Himself necessitates His knowledge of every aspect of Himself, as will be established below. His knowledge cannot be confined to certain aspects of Himself, since nothing necessitates such a restriction; rather, that which necessitates its comprehensiveness is present. Since He knows every aspect of Himself, He must necessarily know all that follows from His own being.

Know that the point here is that His knowledge of Himself entails His knowledge of His creation, and the former cannot exist without the latter, just as complete knowledge of the evidence entails knowledge of what it indicates and cannot exist without it.

As for the claim that His knowledge of Himself necessitates that knowledge and is a cause of its existence—this,