Hence, the aspects of potentiality and actuality are not...

Hence, the aspects of potentiality and actuality are not entified aspects, and their concepts are not to be considered absolute ( nafsī ). Rather they are relational concepts which refer to intellectual and comparative aspects. This is an important point which we indicated in our criticism of the proof of the Aristotelians for prime matter.

Another issue is that there is a difference between the division of existence into cause and effect and the division into the mental and the objective, for in the division of cause and effect, a cause may be considered which is in no way any sort of an effect, such as the Sacred Divine Essence, and one can also imagine an effect which is completely free of causal agency. However, other than these, existents will be causes in one respect and effects in another.…