matters. This shows that anyone who does not affirm that the Lord knows particulars is committed to the consequence that He knows nothing that exists. For every existing thing is distinct from everything else in such a way that conceiving it precludes its being shared.

For this reason, Ibn Sīnā did not deny that, on his own principles, He knows fixed and enduring particulars, such as the heavens and the stars. He denied only His knowledge of changing things, seeking to avoid admitting that temporally originated events subsist in Him. Yet some leading philosophers, and later thinkers who agreed with them, maintain that temporally originated events do subsist in Him. He has absolutely no argument for denying this except the argument by which he denies that attributes subsist in Him. His affirmation of knowledge, however, entails affirming attributes, as explained earlier. Thus, his affirmation that He knows universals but not particulars is utterly self-contradictory.

Al-Tūsī said:

“Every particular to which a judgment pertains has a nature that exists in that individual instance. That nature does not become a particular, inaccessible to the intellect and beyond the scope of demonstration and definition, because of the addition to it of designation by the senses and comparable individuating factors, which can be apprehended only through sensation or comparable means. If that nature is considered apart from those individuating factors, it becomes a universal, apprehensible by the intellect and within the scope of demonstration and definition,