death with respect to Him. We then noticed that the class of living beings itself falls into two kinds: those that speak and those that do not. Accordingly, we attributed to Him the better of the two and said, “He is a living, speaking being,” in order to deny that He is ignorant.

The three are only names, yet they point to one God, one reality, one Lord, one Creator—one living, speaking being: that is, essence, speech, and life. In our usage the essence is the Father, the source of the other two; the speech is the Son, begotten from Him, for speech issues from intellect; and the life is the Holy Spirit. These names are not of our own invention.

The reply may be given from several angles.

First: They say, “As for our words ‘Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,’ had others realized that by them we merely wish to affirm correctly that God is living and speaking, they would not have objected to us.”

We answer: The matter is not as they allege, for the Christians themselves claim that this formula was received from the Gospel, and that in the Gospel the Messiah—may Allah’s blessings and peace be upon him—said, “Baptize the people in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” Thus the origin of their statement is what they maintain to be revealed scripture, not that they first proved life and speech by rational argument and then expressed them with these terms, as they asserted in their debate.