and the knowledge that prophetic guidance sought to impart—although their elaboration of this doctrine contains inconsistencies that we have explained elsewhere.

The response is: If we suppose that these observable entities are necessarily existent in themselves, or that they are the Existent who is necessary in Himself, or that their existence is other than the existence of the Necessary Existent, it could not then be said of the Necessary Existent that He does not act after previously not having acted, on the grounds that this would entail something new occurring and that it is impossible for anything to originate from Him. Nor could it be said that this would entail His possessing attributes, His division into parts, temporal occurrences inhering in Him, or the like, and that this is impossible. For anyone who allows that the Necessary Existent is the existent that changes from one state to another, and that He is at one time a sperm-drop, then a clinging clot, then a lump of flesh; at another, a seed, then a tree, then fruit; and at another, alive, then