In short, just as everything acted upon has an agent, every composite has an agent who assembles it. For composition is a condition of the composite’s existence, and nothing can cause a condition of its own existence, since that would entail its being its own cause.

Thus the Mu‘tazilah are closer to the truth than the Ash‘arīs in regarding these attributes of the First Principle as reducible to the essence, rather than additional to it—much like the many essential attributes found in numerous existing things, such as a thing’s being existent, one, and alī, and so forth.”

He said:

“The philosophers’ position concerning the First Principle is close to that of the Mu‘tazilah.”

The reply to him is:

Your statement, “There is no difference between the soul and this being except that the soul is in a body,” is entirely mistaken.

For two things sharing certain attributes does not entail their being alike in their essential nature. Otherwise, things that differ would be alike. Blackness differs from whiteness, yet shares with it the properties of being a colour, an accident, and something subsisting in another.

Moreover, the more discerning philosophers agree that bodies are not alike in their essential nature, despite sharing the properties of occupying space, admitting accidents, and other characteristics.

A small living creature, such as a mosquito, bedbug, or fly, is not the like of a human being, an angel, or a jinn, even though each is alive, capable of action, sentient, and moves by its own will.