In this chapter, Maimonides explains why it is wrong to believe that God has essential attributes (al-sifaat al-zaatiya الصفات الذاتية).

There are two related concepts: ‘similarity’ (shibhiya شبهية) and ‘relation’ (nisbat نسبة). There can only be a similarity between two things if there is some relation between them; and “since the existence of a relation between God and man, or between Him and other beings has been denied, similarity must likewise be denied”. Maimonides’ concept of similarity is quite wide: he gives the example of ‘a grain of mustard’ and ‘the sphere of the fixed stars’: both are similar in the sense that they both share an essential property, i.e., “the property of having dimensions”.

Even if we keep such a wide latitude for the idea of ‘similarity’, however, we cannot admit in God the ‘essential attributes’ of Existence, Life, Power, Wisdom, and Will if by these terms we mean a ‘more perfect version’ of these qualities compared to the life, power, wisdom, or will of human beings. Maimonides says that those who believe in essential attributes of God practically believe exactly this: that “His existence is only more stable, His life more permanent, His power greater, His wisdom more perfect, and His will more general than ours, and that the same definition applies to both”; nothing could be further from the truth, according to Maimonides, because these terms when applied to God have no relation whatsoever to the terms as used for human beings.