Another is to say: Possible essences in themselves are limitless.

Another is to say: Every observed single entity from which effects proceed has existing receptive subjects, whereas the Creator—Most High—is the Originator of the existence of everything besides Him. No effect proceeding from a contingent being is known to arise except from two or more factors; moreover, there may be an impediment that prevents the effect (1). Among all existents, there is none from which anything proceeds by itself except Allah [Most High] (2).

[The Invalidity of the Philosophers’ Claim That Only One Thing Can Proceed from One]

Their assertion, “Only one thing can proceed from one,” is a universal proposition. If they include within it [anything] (3) besides Allah, then nothing proceeds from that thing alone. If, however, they mean only Allah, this is precisely the point in dispute and the matter requiring proof. How, then, can what is to be proven itself serve as the proof—especially when they know neither the reality of that One nor how things proceed from Him?

Moreover, the One they affirm is existence stripped of affirmative attributes according to [some of them]—such as Ibn Sīnā and his followers (4)—or stripped of both affirmative and negative attributes according to others. This has no reality in the external world; indeed, its realization there is impossible. It is merely [something] (5) posited in the mind, just as impossibilities are posited. For this reason (6), Ibn Rushd and other philosophers disputed what Ibn Sīnā stated on this subject. They said: “This is not [itself] the position of the [leading] philosophers (7); rather, Ibn