meaning rather than wording. The second premise is therefore false, as established by rational necessity and the agreement of rational people.

The sixteenth response: He may be asked: What do you mean by saying, “He would depend for His existence upon something other than Himself”? Dependence, in its ordinary, unqualified sense, means that something needs another that has no need of it, as a servant depends upon Allah.

As for two things neither of which exists without the other—such as an entity and its inseparable attribute, or a capacity and its inseparable power, or mutually dependent relations such as fatherhood and sonship, being above and being below, and the like—one cannot describe either as depending upon the other without the reverse also being true. Rather, saying that each depends upon the other is equivalent to saying that a thing depends upon itself. The meaning is that neither exists without the other, just as a thing cannot exist without its own self.

If it is created, the one who brings it into being brings its very self into being; and the one who brings either of the two into being brings the other into being. If, however, the entity in question is the Creator, then He—glory be to Him—does not depend upon anything other than His own essence. The meaning is simply that His existence is necessary in itself, and that His existence is necessary in such a way that His nonexistence is impossible; whereas one of these things necessarily accompanies the other in a manner compatible with its nonexistence.