the human nature (nāsūt)—for God has never spoken to any of the prophets except through revelation or from behind a veil—and nothing they have advanced contains the least indication, whether certain or even conjectural, of the embodiment of the creative Word of God or of its being born together with the nāsūt.

Fourteenth point:
They say, “As for the embodiment of the creative Word of God….” Then they continue, “the Word of God through which the subtle beings were created….” At one moment they depict it as a creator; the next moment they depict it as that through which things are created. Yet it is self-evident that the creator is not the same as that through which things are created, nor is that through which things are created the creator. If, therefore, the Word is a creator, then it brought things into existence, and things were not brought into existence through it; but if things were brought into existence through it, then it did not create them—rather, they were created by it.

Had they said that things were created by it in the sense that when God wills a matter He merely says to it, “Be!” and it is, this would have been correct. Instead, however, they make it out to be a creator while simultaneously affirming what flatly contradicts that.

Fifteenth point:
It may be said to them: Since God never addresses a human being except by revelation, or from behind a veil, or by sending a messenger who, by His permission, conveys what He wills—His addressing mankind by revelation and from behind a veil, as He addressed Moses, and by sending an angel, as He has sent the angels—must either be sufficient to fulfil the Lord’s purpose of communicating His message to His servants or be insufficient, in which case it would be necessary for Him to indwell a human being in person. If it is sufficient, then the Messiah could be like any other prophet: God could inspire him directly, or dispatch an angel to him who, by God’s leave, would reveal whatever He wished, or speak to him from behind a veil just as He spoke