The disputant’s objection to this must be considered after clarifying the meaning of separateness. For theologians and speculative thinkers use “separateness” in “three” senses—indeed, “four.”

The first is separateness as opposed to sameness, resemblance, and close similarity.

The second is separateness as opposed to sharing a location, coexistence, interpenetration, being outside one another, and intermingling.

The third is separateness as opposed to contact and direct adjacency. This sense is narrower than the preceding one: something separate from another thing, without interpenetrating it, may nevertheless be touching and connected to it, or it may be detached from it and not adjacent to it. This third sense of separateness and its opposite apply only to things that subsist in themselves, such as bodies. Thus one says, “This entity must either be touching that one or be separate from it.”

As for the preceding sense of separateness and its opposite, they encompass both what subsists in itself and what subsists in something else. An accident subsisting in itself is not separate from it, nor is it said to be touching it. Thus one says, “This colour must either be separate from this entity or this taste, or share its location, coexist with it, interpenetrate it,” and other such expressions. If someone uses the terms “contact” and “direct adjacency” for an attribute’s subsistence in that which possesses it, the dispute would be merely verbal.

As for the first sense, an example is the saying reported from al-Hasan al-Basrī:

“We saw them much alike in times of well-being, but when affliction came, they differed greatly.”

That is, they differed in merit and degree. One also says, “He has distinguished himself from his peers,” meaning that, through the virtues that distinguish him, he is no longer their equal, their like, or even close to them. One also says, “There is a wide gulf between this and that,” using either bawn or bayn for “gulf.”