Hence, they would have to possess distinct, externally established instances that are abstracted from particulars. Were one to suppose that there exists outside the mind an “absolute existence” conditioned by absoluteness, it would be an all-embracing universal and would, of necessity, have concrete instances in external reality. It would apply equally to the Necessary Existent and the contingent, to the pre-eternal and the originated, to substance and accident—exactly as every other universal concept encompasses its particulars, whether it be termed a genus, a species, a differentia, a proprium, or a universal accident. Consequently, these comprehensive universals cannot themselves be the very existents that fall under them.

For the same reason, if one assumes that the unconditioned absolute—namely, the natural universal—exists externally, it is found only in a determinate form, and the determinate is not the absolute. At best they might claim that the determinate is a part of it or an attribute of it; but that would make the Lord of all worlds a part of creation or one of its attributes.

Such people err in two respects. First, they imagine that absolute universals exist outside the mind, whereas whatever the intellect conceives as an absolute universal exists externally only as something determinate and specific. Second, even if one conceded the existence of an external absolute universal, every particular existent is undeniably individuated and distinguished from all others—this is not that, nor is the existence of one identical to the existence of another. How, then, could their existence be identical with the existence of the Lord of all worlds?

In every case, therefore, one must affirm an existent that is necessary in and of itself, distinct from this supposed absolute—whether one asserts, with Plato’s followers, that there are absolute universals existing apart from particulars, or whether it is said