—were an offender to wrong him, he would sue him for redress. If the divine decree were truly an excuse for the offender, then so be it; otherwise it is no plea for either side.

If invoking predestination were admissible, people could not survive, for every aggressor could cite it, his excuse would have to be accepted, and he would escape punishment. Indeed, not even two adherents of this doctrine could live together, for each could kill the other and ruin all his affairs while pleading the decree.

Moreover, those innovators who have inserted the denial of the divine attributes into the doctrine of God’s oneness, together with those who have expelled obedience to the command from it—should they press both claims to their logical end—would end up making no distinction between Creator and creation. Rather, they would affirm a “unity of existence,” just as the atheists who preach oneness, indwelling, and fusion do—people who glorify idols and their worshippers, Pharaoh, Haman, and their cohorts, and who hold that the very being of the Maker of the heavens and the earth is the being of every existent thing, all the while claiming true monotheism and realization.