or both, as when you say, “All existence, both necessary and contingent,” or “Necessary and contingent existence.” In every case, equivocation does not necessarily follow.

As for his statement, “If it denotes the Lord’s essence, then His essence differs from all other existent things,” the response is: The unrestricted term ‘existence,’ considered as divisible into categories, does not denote what is specific to the Lord. But when ‘existence’ is used specifically for the Lord’s existence, or inclusively, as when we say, “Necessary and contingent existence,” and similar expressions, it does denote what is specific to the Lord’s essence, even though His essence differs from that of others. Likewise, the expressions ‘the Lord’s essence’ and ‘the servant’s essence’ denote what is specific to the Lord and to the servant, even though the reality of the one differs from that of the other. Similarly, the term ‘existence’ denotes both, despite the difference between the realities of the two existent beings.

If it is said, “If the reality of this existence differs from the reality of that existence, then the term is equivocal,” the response is:

This is a mistake from which the error of this man and others like him has arisen. All differing realities share general names that encompass them through univocal and graded predication. For example, the term ‘color’ encompasses blackness, whiteness, and redness, despite the differences between the realities of these colors. Likewise, the terms ‘attribute,’ ‘accident,’ and ‘meaning’ encompass knowledge, power, life, taste, color, and smell, despite the differences between the realities of colors.