accept (1) any argument offered in refutation of it.” I therefore laid bare to them the true import of their aims, and they acknowledged that this was indeed what was intended. Their foremost leaders concurred with them on this. I then demonstrated the corruption and heresy inherent in it, until they retracted their position and began writing works exposing the falsehood of their heretical predecessors, whom they had regarded as authorities in verification, divine oneness, gnosis, and certainty.

[The Philosophers’ Proofs of Divine Oneness]

The principal basis of these philosophers [for their doctrine of divine oneness] (2)—which is in reality (3) [pure] negation—consists of two arguments:

The first is that (4), if there were two Necessary Existents (5), they would share in necessity, while each would be distinguished from the other by something particular to it. That by which they share would be other than that by which they differ. It would therefore follow that the Necessary Existent is composite; yet anything composite depends upon its parts [and its parts are other than it] (6), while that which depends upon another cannot (7) be necessary in itself.

The second is that, if both shared in necessity (8), while each was distinguished from the other by something particular to it, the shared element would necessarily be an effect of the particular element. This is analogous to two individuals sharing in humanity while each is distinguished from the other by his individual identity: the shared element is an effect of the particular element (9). [This, however, is false in the present case.