accidents is impossible.” Thus, whoever posits the possibility of a self-subsisting existent without any attribute has posited something whose existence in external reality is unknown, and whose very possibility in external reality is unknown. How much more so when it is known to be impossible outside the mind! Everything said by those who deny the attributes implies that such a thing cannot exist and can only be supposed mentally. The mind conceives it within itself just as it conceives impossibilities whose existence, or even possibility, in reality is inconceivable.

Moreover, if “the Lord Most High” can possess the attributes of perfection—and whatever is possible for Him is necessary for Him—then He cannot be devoid of those attributes. To posit His essence without the attributes necessarily inseparable from Him is therefore to posit an impossibility.

Since supposing their absence is impossible, both in general and in particular, the statement, “He would be dependent on them, and they would be dependent on Him,” is intelligible only with respect to two things each of which can exist without the other. When this is impossible, that supposition is invalid.

He should then be asked: What do you mean by dependence? Do you mean that the essence produces and originates the attributes, or the reverse? Or do you mean mutual inseparability—that neither can exist without the other? If you mean the dependence of an effect upon its agent, this is false. The Lord does not produce His inseparable attributes. Indeed, no particular act of His, nor any particular thing He produces, is inseparable from Him. How, then, can you regard His attributes as things He produces, when His attributes are inseparable from His essence and are not among the things He produces? But if you mean mutual inseparability, that is true.