The reply is: This difference from the Creator’s essence, which they share, necessarily entails origination, for it is peculiar to them and is not found in the Creator. Whatever is peculiar to what is originated necessarily entails origination. Accordingly, it has the same status as origination. For when they say, “It is either existence or origination,” every attribute that necessarily entails origination has the same status as origination in this respect. Likewise, every attribute inseparable from existence, whose absence would entail the absence of existence, has the same status as existence. Denying that such an attribute serves as the explanatory ground entails denying that existence serves as the explanatory ground, as explained above.

His statement in the sixth question:

“Why could origination not be what accounts for this judgment? As for his statement, ‘Origination is an essence composed of nonexistence and existence,’ we reply: Everything originated can truly be described as admitting of nonexistence and existence. Moreover, for something to be divided into the co-located and the spatially separate means that it admits of division into these two categories. If this capacity is a positive attribute, it is so in both cases; if it is privative, the same holds. There is nothing implausible about explaining one absence by another.”

The reply is: Neither origination nor anything that necessarily entails origination can be the cause of a positive feature, because it necessarily entails nonexistence, and whatever necessarily entails nonexistence cannot be the cause of a positive feature. Thus, one cannot account for