To clarify: if the Word is nothing but an attribute, an attribute does not create; and if the attribute is taken together with the One it qualifies, this is the Creator, not that by which things are created.

Second: Their statement that it became embodied in a created human, and their talk of “the incarnation of the Word of God.” Their words “it became flesh” and “it took on a body” necessarily entail that the Word itself turned into a body and a physical substance within that created human being. This in turn requires that it was converted into flesh and matter, which implies mutation and change—yet they also assert that the union occurred without any change or transformation.

Third: Their claim that “the Word united with him in a union free of mixture, change, or transformation” is likewise self-contradictory, for union makes two into one. One may say that before the union the divine nature (lahūt) was one essence and the human nature (nāsūt) was another; or, if you wish, that this was one thing and that was another, or that this was a self-subsistent entity and that was a self-subsistent entity. After the union, only two possibilities remain: either they are still two as before—in which case there is no union but only the same plurality—or the two have become one. If that one is simply one of the two, then the other has ceased to exist, which is the annihilation of one, not their union. But if the resulting one is neither of the original two, then both must have undergone alteration and transformation; otherwise, were they to persist after the alleged union as two entities retaining their own properties, no union would have taken place. Thus, when it is said, “They united in a union free from mixture, change, or transformation,” it is