The eleventh point: It may be said that those who go furthest in denying the attributes are the extreme philosophers, the Qarmatians, and their leaders among the polytheistic Sabians and others. If they affirm the Maker, they must affirm His existence, that His existence is necessary rather than contingent, and that He brought the world into being, whether they call Him a cause, a begetter, or something else.

If what is meant by existence is identical to what is meant by necessity, it follows that everything that exists is necessary in itself, contrary to what is witnessed through sense perception. But if the two do not mean the same thing, then there are two meanings in Him: existence and necessity. Necessity is not merely a negation, for it reinforces existence, and sheer nonexistence cannot reinforce existence.

If the terms “the Unique” and “the One” entirely preclude any plurality of intelligible, affirmative meanings—as Ibn Sīnā and his like among the Arab apostates who follow the Sabian apostates claim, maintaining that if He is one in every respect, there is no multiplicity in Him, whether in attribute or magnitude, which they express by saying that He has neither definitional nor quantitative parts—then necessity, existence, and origination must all mean one and the same thing. This is self-evidently false. But if, in Himself, He is