Most members of both groups take the things thus designated to be coextensive. Since the term has come to convey several meanings, some true and others false, it has become ambiguous.

The rigorous response, then, is to ask:

“When you say that they are accidents, do you mean that they inhere in the essence or are attributes of the essence, and other such valid meanings? Or do you mean that they are flaws and imperfections? Or do you mean that they arise and pass away, never persisting for two successive moments?”

If you mean the first, it is correct. If you mean the second, it is rejected.

If you mean the third, this rests upon the view of those who say:

“An accident does not persist for two successive moments.”

Whoever holds that view while maintaining that these attributes endure will say, “I do not call them accidents.” But one who instead maintains that an accident can persist for two successive moments would not regard this as preventing them from being called accidents.

As for your statement:

“An accident can subsist only in a body,”

it is said to you: You hold that He is Living, Knowing, and Powerful. Yet, by the same reasoning, only a body can be called by these names, just as only a body can be described by the attributes you have deemed accidents. Whatever answer you give regarding the affirmation of the names is the answer that “those who affirm [the attributes]” give regarding the affirmation of the attributes.

It is also said to him:

“What do you mean by saying that these attributes are accidents which can subsist only in a body?”