—which, had they really intended, would be an even graver form of unbelief. Instead they declare:

“We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all ages: Light from Light, true God from true God, of the very essence of His Father, begotten not created.”

They have thus stated explicitly that he is Lord and that he is “true God from true God,” thereby affirming a second deity alongside the first.

They also claim that he was “begotten of the Father before all ages” and that he is “begotten, not made.” Consequently, they cannot be speaking here of the human nature (nasūt), for the human nature is created.

Moreover, they say that “the Word (kalima) is what is generated from the Father.” Yet the Word is an attribute of the One who speaks and inheres in Him; speech itself is neither lord nor god, but rather the speech of the Lord-God—just as the rest of Allah’s speech, such as the Torah, the Gospel, and the Qur’an, is not itself the Lord or the God.

Then you have said, “He is equal to the Father in essence.” This would mean that the begotten entity, namely the Word, is itself an essence and that it equals the Father in that essence, whereas the thing made equal is not identical with the one to whom it is equated.

Such reasoning inevitably affirms a second essence equal to the first—and that is