and the assumption is that neither has anything of its own, so their coming together cannot produce any existence at all.

This is made clear by the fact that every part depends in every respect upon something other than itself. The whole likewise depends in every respect upon its individual members, for if any individual member is assumed not to exist, the whole must likewise not exist. Thus, the whole has no existence to impart to its individual members, nor does any individual member have existence to impart to the whole or to any other member. This differs from the coming together of ten individuals: their being ten is not a property possessed by each individual, just as each individual does not derive its existence from the ten coming together. Since each individual’s existence derives neither from the ten nor from any other individual among them, it can exist on its own and can be a condition for another individual’s existence, while the property arising from the ten coming together need not belong to each individual separately. It thus becomes clear that the totality of contingent beings cannot itself be contingent. This has been discussed at length elsewhere.

[A Question Raised by al-Āmidī and Responses to It]

The second question is al-Āmidī’s, expressed as follows:

“What prevents the whole from being contingent in existence, with its existence prevailing over nonexistence through that of its individual members, and the existence of each member through another, ad infinitum?”