(_b_) This brings us to the attributes of God generally. The Ash`arites in this controversy side with the traditional school against the philosophers. Of the ten Aristotelian categories they regard only two--existence, i.e., _ens_, and quality as objectively real; the other eight are merely relative characteristics (_i´tibar_) subjective in the mind of the knower, and having no objective reality. God has qualities--indeed, no less than twenty are enumerated, but amongst these is _mukhalafa_, which is the quality of uniqueness in qualification, so that the qualities and attributes ascribed to God must either be such as cannot be applied to men, or else, if the terms can be used of created beings, they must have quite different meanings when applied to God, and these qualities thus signified must be such as could not be predicated of men or of any other created being. Thus, that God has power and wisdom means that He is almighty and omniscient in a way which could not possibly be stated of any men. In practice this works so that no attribute can be applied to God unless it is expressly so applied in the text of the Qur´an; if it occurs there it may be used, but must be understood as having a meaning other than such a term would have when used in the normal way of men. It cannot be that God’s attributes differ from those of men only in degree, as that He is wiser and more powerful than man, but they differ in their whole nature. It is noted also that God is _qiyam bi-n-nafs_, or “subsisting in Himself,” that is to say, independent of any other than Himself, and so God’s knowledge does not depend on the existence or nature of the thing known. (_c_) As to freedom of the will. God creates power in the man and creates also the choice, and He then creates the act corresponding to this power and choice. Thus the action is “acquired” by the creature. Of the categories existence is the first substratum, and to this the other predicables are added: none of these others are separable or _per se_, they can only exist in the essence. It is admitted that such qualities exist in the _ens_, but they are only adjuncts which come into being with the _ens_ and go out of existence with it. Therefore the world consists of _entia_ or substances on which the mind reflects the qualities which are not in the thing itself but only in the mind. Against the Aristotelian theory that matter suffers the impress of form, he argues that all impress is subjective in the mind: if all qualities fall out substance itself ceases to exist, and so substance is not permanent but transitory, which opposes the Aristotelian doctrine of the eternity of matter.