They hold that this existence is an accident supervening upon the quiddity, even though it is inseparable from it. Therefore they say that the Necessary Existent’s existence does not inhere in any quiddity, lest composition and causal dependence ensue. His existence, then, is defined only by the fact that it does not inhere in any quiddity; consequently, He can possess no reality in Himself beyond sheer, undetermined existence.
We answer: On this premise He shares with every creature the mere name “existence,” and differs from them only by a negative restriction—the denial of all positive attributes—whereas each creature differs from Him by the particular, positive reality that belongs to it. It is self-evident, and they themselves concede, that existence is superior to non-existence. Hence, when two things participate in existence and one is distinguished by a positive attribute while the other is distinguished only by a privation, the one distinguished by the positive attribute is necessarily more perfect than the one distinguished by privation. For it partakes in the common existence and adds to it its own particular existence, whereas the other is set apart only by the absence of every specific existence. Whether the shared existence is regarded as a genus or as a common accident, and whether the differentiating element is deemed a differentia or a property, the conclusion is the same: what is differentiated solely by negation is inferior to what is differentiated by positive reality.
They protest, “We adopted this view merely to escape composition.” We reply: If composition were truly a defect, what you have fled to is worse than what you fled from. The concept to which you have resorted entails that He has no reality outside the mind, for an existent that is not specified by any positive determination exists only in thought, not in actuality. And if, for argument’s sake, such a being were granted external existence, every contingent entity would surpass Him; every creature—even a speck of dust or a gnat—would be more perfect than the Lord of the Worlds, the Lord of the heavens and the earth. Any doctrine that leads to this consequence is corrupt in the extreme.
Praise be to God, who has guided us to recognize the truth and to dispel the confusion of those who claim to be the most accomplished of mankind, yet are the most ignorant of the Lord of all worlds.
God the Exalted has spoken about the idolaters, as He relates in Sûrat al-Shuʿarâ’:
“Paradise will be brought near for the reverent, and Hellfire will be laid bare for the deviant, and it will be said to them, ‘Where is that which you used to…’”