The majority held that the term applies literally to both. Most of them, however, considered it univocal in the broad sense—or graded in its application, if graded terms are treated as a separate category. This differs from strict univocity, in which a term’s meanings are identical across its applications. Only a small handful of later thinkers considered it homonymous; this view is not known to have been held by any major school or prominent speculative thinkers. Whoever attributes it to al-Ashʿarī, as al-Rāzī did, is mistaken.

For his position, and that of most of his followers, is that ‘existence’ is a general term divided into eternal and temporally originated existence. His position, however, is that the existence of each thing is identical with its quiddity. This is the position of the vast majority of rational thinkers, Muslims and others alike. Some supposed that this necessarily makes the term homonymous, as al-Āmidī argued. This is mistaken, as we have explained at length elsewhere, and as will become clear through our discussion of his argument.

As for his statement:

“The term ‘existence’ must denote either the essence or an attribute additional to the essence.”

He should be asked: Do you mean the general term ‘existence,’ which is divided into necessary and contingent existence, or existence in a particular sense, as when one says ‘the existence of the necessary’ and ‘the existence of the contingent’? For it is well known that names used to designate the Lord and others—indeed, any