If the distinction between the two is sought, the answer is:
His states are entailed by His essence, which is necessarily existent in its own right. None of its states depends on anything independent of it and not in need of Him. Since He necessarily exists in His own right, whatever is inseparable from Him is likewise necessary and cannot be nonexistent, unlike a contingent being, which has no existence of its own.
For if it is said that the agent’s action differs and is delayed because the receptive entity differs and comes into being, the answer is that He is also the agent who produces that differing receptive entity which comes into being. How, then, can differing things that come into being proceed from an agent whose action does not differ and none of whose acts comes into being?
[Al-Abharī’s Reply to al-Rāzī and Ibn Taymiyya’s Commentary]
Al-Abharī invalidated the argument of the Muʿtazila, the Ashʿarīs, and others like them for bodies having a beginning, and sought to defend the philosophers. He said:
“Chapter: The methods employed by the Imam—meaning Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Rāzī—in his books to establish the doctrines of the theologians, and how to object to them.
His method of establishing that the world has a beginning takes two forms.
The first is that the world is contingent in itself, and everything contingent in itself has a beginning. For its cause must act upon it either while it exists, while it does not exist, or neither while it exists nor while it does not exist.
The first is invalid, because acting upon it while it exists would mean bringing into existence what already exists and bringing about what has already been brought about, which is impossible.
The second is impossible, because acting upon it while it does not exist would mean combining existence and nonexistence, which is impossible.
It must therefore be neither while it exists nor while it does not exist, but rather while it is coming into being. Thus, everything that has a cause has a beginning.
The second is that, if bodies existed from eternity, they must have been either moving or stationary from eternity. Both alternatives are invalid.
The first is invalid for several reasons: