His essence be like the essence of any created thing, nor the reality of any of His attributes like the reality of the attributes of created beings. It is therefore known with absolute certainty that He is not of the same order as creation—neither the angels, nor the heavens, nor the celestial bodies, nor the air, the water, or the earth, nor human beings, their bodies, or their souls, nor anything else whatsoever. Rather, His reality is farther removed from any resemblance to existing things than all other realities; indeed, His likeness to any of them is more remote than the likeness of one created reality to another created reality.

For when two realities are identical, whatever is possible for one is possible for the other, whatever is necessary for one is necessary for the other, and whatever is impossible for one is impossible for the other. It would then follow that the Eternal Creator, whose existence is necessary in and of Himself, could be subject to the contingencies of the originated creature—non-existence and dependence—and that the originated creature would in turn possess what belongs exclusively to the Creator: necessary existence and absolute self-sufficiency. Thus, one and the same thing would be both necessary in itself and not necessary.