Moreover, neither the Messiah nor the Apostles ever instructed them to engage in the sort of speculation that supposedly necessitates this formula, nor did the Messiah make the use of that formula contingent upon such an inquiry. It is therefore clear that claiming the statement arose from that investigation is a baseless assertion whose falsity they themselves recognize.

Fourthly:
As for this statement, if the Messiah did not say it, it is impermissible to say it, even if one intends a sound meaning by it, because this expression, when uttered without qualification, conveys only false notions. For that reason many ordinary Christians believe that the Messiah is the Son of God in the literal sense of sonship known among created beings, and they even say that Mary is the wife of God. This, in fact, logically follows for most Christians, even if they do not state it openly, for one who begets must necessarily have a spouse.

Thus the Exalted has said:
“ How could He have a child when He has no consort, when He created all things and is fully aware of everything ” (Qur’an 6:101).

Affirming that the Lord is the parent of the begotten is even more repugnant to reason than claiming that He has a consort, whether the begetting is understood to be physical or the “intellectual begetting” of which Christian theologians speak. Anyone who posits a consort for Him might try to reinterpret the matter—just as they themselves have reinterpreted the idea of a son—when they say: “From the Father the Word was begotten; from Mary the human nature was born; the human nature then united with the divine nature. Just as the Father is Father with respect to the divine nature, not the human nature, and Mary is mother of the human nature, not the divine nature, so too she is a consort of the Father in relation to the human nature, and the divine nature is Mary’s husband in its divinity, just as it is the Father of the Messiah.”