Third: Their statement, “The attribute is identical with the One described, and every attribute is identical with every other attribute,” is a brazen denial of rational truths and sheer sophistry against self-evident realities. Sound reason and direct experience alike testify that an attribute is other than the bearer of that attribute and that each attribute is distinct from the others: knowledge is not the Knower, power is not the Powerful, and speech is not the Speaker—just as knowledge, power, and speech are mutually different qualities.

Fourth: Describing Allah with affirmative attributes points far more clearly to His perfection than describing Him by negations alone. Affirmation concerns real existence and thus conveys the variety of perfections that are His due, whereas negation is a mere absence and indicates no perfection unless it implicitly affirms its positive opposite—something these deniers refuse to acknowledge.

Fifth: Their claim that affirming multiple attributes, each distinct from the Essence, necessitates a plurality of deities is patently false, contradicting both reason and observation. A diversity of attributes does not entail a multiplicity of subjects. A single human being, for instance, is called living, hearing, seeing, rational, and speaking—among many other qualities—without thereby multiplying his very self.

Sixth: As for their objection concerning the divine names—that affirming them entails His being qualified by the meaning of each name, which in turn amounts to assimilation—the answer is that the meanings implied by those names are attributes befitting Allah and in no way impossible for Him. Moreover, sharing a name or an attribute does not require likeness between the entities so named or described.

Seventh: They contend that affirming the attributes necessarily likens Him to existing beings; yet, by their own logic, the negation they espouse likens Him to non-existent things, which is far more blameworthy than any supposed resemblance to existent beings. They are therefore faced with only two coherent options: either accept affirmation and thus join the mainstream community, or, having already rejected affirmation, also reject negation and thereby align themselves with the most extreme of the Qarmatians, Bāṭinites, and the like. To allow one while disallowing the other is an obvious contradiction.