or by way of substitution, which is what they call unrestrictedness and “substitutional” generality, as in the Qur’anic phrase, “then freeing a slave.”

A group among them goes so far as to say that the Necessary Existence is precisely this absolute, considered “without condition.” On that view It would be identical with, or at least a part of, the actual existence of contingent beings; the Necessary Existence that created the universe would thus be nothing other than the creature’s own existence, or a portion of it.

It is therefore evident that when one speaks of “absolute existence,” three possibilities arise:

1. If by it he means the absolute “without condition” – the natural universal – then the Necessary would possess no existence other than the existence of His creatures, or only a part of that existence.

2. If he means the absolute “on condition of absoluteness,” such an existence can be found only in the mind; it is the purely intellectual universal.

3. If he means an existence restricted solely by negative conditions, as Ibn Sīnā and his followers suggested, then although this is narrower than the absolute without condition, it is broader than the absolute conditioned by absoluteness with respect to both negation and affirmation. Yet it is even more impossible to exist extramentally, for an absolute qualified by affirmation is more deserving of existence than one qualified by negation. That which is qualified by the negation of both affirmation and negation is impossible outright, and is even more deserving of non-existence in one respect, since both contradictories have been stripped away. Likewise, what is conditioned by non-existence is, from another angle, still more entitled to non-existence, because non-existence itself is stipulated for it. Hence it is impossible for it to be existent while simultaneously being non-existent.