he used to argue for figurative usage when he said:

“If the word is used literally in both instances, equivocation necessarily follows.”

This is mistaken. For what indicates the specific meaning in one instance is not what indicates the specific meaning in the other; rather, it is what is added to the word.

Thus, saying “the Lord’s existence” and “the servant’s existence” is comparable to saying “a man’s back” and “a horse’s back,” just as one speaks of a man’s back and the surface of a road. In all these instances, what indicates the distinction between one and another is the wording specific to each instance, not merely the shared word. Rather, the shared wording indicates what is shared, and the distinctive wording indicates what is distinctive. This entails that the two backs have an aspect in common and an aspect in which they differ. Likewise, the two instances of existence have an aspect in common and an aspect in which they differ. This is what is meant by commonality and distinction.

Some people, however, imagine that what the two have in common exists in external reality as something shared between them. This is mistaken. Rather, each is distinct in external reality, while the mind abstracts from them a common universal element. Thus, one says, “They share in existence, animal nature, and human nature.” As Allah Most High says:

“Since you did wrong, it will not benefit you today that you share in the punishment.”

And He says:

“Indeed, on that Day they will share in the punishment.”

Thus, the punishment that befalls one corresponds to that which befalls the other and is of the same kind: they share in the kind of punishment. There is no single, particular thing in external reality that they both share. Rather, they share in the particular punishment in the sense that each has a portion of it, like those who share ownership of a property and the like.