Tahafut_al-Tahafut-transl-Engl-van-den-Bergh

without knowing the existence, and this meaning of ‘existent’ of necessity
does not signify the quiddity in the compound substance, but is in the
simple substance identical with the quiddity; and this meaning is not what
the translators intended by ‘existence’, for they meant the quiddity itself,
and when we say of the existent that it is in part substance, in part
accident, the sense meant by the translators must be understood, and this
is the sense which is predicated analogically of different essences of
things. When we say, however, that substance exists, it must be
understood in the sense of the true. And therefore if we have understood
the well-known discussion of the ancient philosophers, whether the
existent is one or more than one, which is found in the first book of
Aristotle’s Physics where he conducts a discussion with the ancient
philosophers Parmenides and Melissus, s we need only understand by
‘existent’ that which signifies the essence. And if the ‘existent’ meant an
accident in a substratum, then the statement that the existent was one
would be self-contradictory. ‘ And all this is clear for the man who is well
grounded in the books of the philosophers.
And having stated the views of the philosophers, Ghazali begins to refute
them, and says:
I say:
This is the sense of the doctrine of the philosophers. And
the discussion with them consists of two parts: a question
and a refutation. The question is: This is the simple narration
of your doctrine, but how do you know the impossibility of
this with respect to God, so as to build on it the refutation of
dualism, since you say that a second God would have to
participate in something and differ from the first in
something, and that which partly possesses something in
common with another, partly is different from it, is
compound, whereas that He should be compound is absurd?
I have already said that this is only valid for something which possesses
a common feature through a genus which is predicated univocally, not
analogically. For if, by the assumption of a second God, a God were
assumed of the same rank of divinity as the first, then the name of God
would be predicated univocally, and He would be a genus, and the two
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