that this question has been treated at length in many places, where it is clarified that the universal common factor has no external reality except as a particular, restricted instance; that when beings are said to “share” in something, all that is meant is that they resemble one another from that aspect; and that this general notion is predicated of each being without implying that the things outside the mind actually participate in one numerically single entity. In truth, every existent is set apart from every other by its own essence, attributes, and actions.

(Failure to grasp this leads to error and contradiction)
Because of this, many people lapse into inconsistency here: at one moment they imagine that affirming the shared universal necessitates illicit assimilation (tashbīh), so they treat that supposition as proof for denying certain attributes, lest resemblance entailments follow; at another moment they realize that the shared universal must in any case be affirmed, and they cite it to defend the attributes they themselves acknowledge against the objections of those who negate them.

(Examples)
Owing to the sheer confusion surrounding this issue, the question has arisen whether the existence of the Lord is identical with His essence or something additional to it, and whether the term “existence”