its existence were posited as separate from what is perceptible, according to the view of those who affirm “Platonic Forms”—thus positing universal essences separate from the things they qualify, and claiming that they are eternal and beginningless, such as abstract humanity and abstract animality—this would be a false imagining. What they regard as abstract exists abstractly only in the mind; no abstract universal exists in external reality.
Even if an abstract universal were assumed to exist externally, namely what is called existence, it would encompass the existence of all things that have come into being just as it encompasses the existence of the Eternal. Such a universal cannot create anything, nor does it possess attributes of perfection exclusively. It cannot therefore be described as living, knowing, and powerful, since describing it thus would be no more warranted than describing it as powerless, ignorant, and dead. Yet the Creator must be living, knowing, and powerful. Glory be to Him! Exalted is He far above what the wrongdoers say!
Furthermore, even if this were assumed to be the Creator, it would be distinct from the existing, created particulars. Two existences would thus be established, each distinct from the other. One would have come into being and been created, while the other would be the Creator, distinct from what is created. The existence of particular entities cannot be denied.
However, one of these people may lose awareness of things concealed from him, just as he loses awareness of himself. He then supposes that whatever he does not witness has itself ceased to exist and vanished. This is not so. What has ceased and vanished is his witnessing of it, his knowledge of it, and his attention to it. What has ceased to exist and vanished is an attribute of this person; the existing things themselves remain as they were, unchanged. The absence of knowledge is not knowledge of the nonexistent, and the absence of what is witnessed is not witnessing nonexistence. Yet this state overtakes many who travel the spiritual path: