the absolute and the particular.” This resembles the distinction between the human genus and individual human beings, or between the animal genus and individual animals. The Lord would thus be like the genus or common accident of all existing things. It is well known that such a thing has no existence distinct in itself and separate from created beings, for universals—such as genus, species, differentia, property, and common accident—do not exist in external reality separately from existing particulars.
This is known self-evidently and agreed upon by rational people. Disagreement on this matter is reported only from the followers of Plato and others like him, who affirm “Platonic Forms”—universals existing outside the mind independently of particulars—and from the followers of Pythagoras, who affirm the existence of absolute number outside the mind. The First Teacher, Aristotle, and his followers agree that the positions of both these groups are false. If they were to suppose that the Creator, Most High, is absolute existence in this sense, they would fall into precisely what they sought to escape, for this would entail His being separate from the existence of created beings and distinct from them. Moreover, no rational person says that an attribute creates that which possesses it, or that “universals” create their particulars.
The point here is that the overwhelming majority of people—both those who affirm Allah’s being above His creation and those who deny it, in all their various groups—affirm this exhaustive division: a thing must either be separate from another or share its locus and interpenetrate it. If one alternative is ruled out, the other is established. They say that this is known self-evidently.
The deniers said: “We do not concede that this proposition is