Section: The Paths to Knowing the Lord’s Attributes

They went on to say:
“We have observed that living beings are of two kinds: a living being that is nāṭiq (rational/speaking) and a living being that is not. We therefore ascribed to Him the better of the two descriptions and said, ‘He is nāṭiq,’ so as to deny ignorance of Him.”

It is said to them in reply:
“There is no doubt that the Lord—transcendent is He—is described as living, all-knowing, all-powerful, speaking, and choosing. Yet your statement, ‘We said He is nāṭiq in order to negate ignorance,’ shows that by nāṭiq you mean that which is the opposite of ignorance, namely knowledge. You did not intend nāṭiq in the sense of audible speech and verbal expression, nor did you intend what some dialecticians call ‘speech,’ namely meanings that subsist in the soul and are neither of the genus of knowledge nor of the genus of volition.

“In that case one may say to you: among living beings there is none save one that possesses perception; every living creature has a degree of awareness proportionate to its life. The stronger the life, the stronger the perception. The awareness found in animals is sometimes expressed with the word ‘knowledge,’ as people say, ‘the knowledge of a panther, a falcon, or a dog’; and they speak of ‘a trained dog’ versus ‘an untrained dog,’ or ‘a trained falcon.’”