The answer to this, too, has two approaches. The first comprises two methods: counterargument and demonstrating contradiction. The second consists in resolving the difficulty.

As for the first, they affirm that He is knowing and powerful, necessarily existent in His own right, and the producer of what is other than Him. It is self-evident that the concept of His being knowing differs from the concept of His producing other things. If His essence is composed of these meanings, the “composition” they allege necessarily follows; and if these meanings are accidental to His essence, the “dependence” they allege necessarily follows. In short, whatever they say concerning these matters is what the adherents of the Book and the Sunnah say concerning knowledge and power.

As for “demonstrating contradiction”: if the One necessarily existent in His own right is not distinguished from anything else by a positive attribute, then there is no necessarily existent being. If there is no necessarily existent being, no impossibility follows from composition. For they deny these meanings only because affirming them entails “composition,” which in turn entails the negation of necessary existence. Yet this is contradictory: denying these meanings itself entails denying necessary existence. How, then, can they deny them in order to affirm it?

The explanation is that the One necessarily existent in His own right is real, existent, knowing, powerful, and active; and a contingent being may also be existent, knowing, powerful, and active. What they share is not merely a word, but intelligible meanings known self-evidently.

If what they share entails what distinguishes them, then the necessarily existent has become contingent, and the contingent necessarily existent. If it does not entail it, then the necessarily existent has something by which He is distinguished from