nor nonexistent (1). Thus, this should not be treated in the same way as existent things.

The remaining discussion concerns those who affirm the attributes and say:

His attributes exist and subsist in Him (2), while His creatures exist separately (3) from Him. According to them, His attributes necessarily exist and cannot be nonexistent. It cannot be said that they may exist or may not exist, as may be said of the contingent things He originated.

Nor do they say that the attributes possess established essences distinct from their existence, and that those essences admit of either existence or nonexistence, as some say concerning contingent, created things. It is therefore clear that likening His attributes to His creatures (4) is utterly unsound according to every school.

The sixth point:

His statement—“None of them necessarily exists in itself. Rather, considered in itself, each is capable of existing (5), while it necessarily exists when considered in relation to the Essence of the Necessary Existent”—is inadmissible and indeed false. Rather, the attributes are inseparable from the Essence (6): the Essence cannot exist without its inseparable attributes, nor can those attributes exist without the Essence. Each necessarily entails, and is entailed by, the other. And the claimant’s assertion that