Section: A continuation of Ibn al-Baṭrīq’s discourse and a rebuttal of it

Saʿīd ibn al-Baṭrīq said:

“The indwelling of the creative Word of God and Its fusion with the substance of humanity did not come about through relocation, change, or any contrivance on the part of either of the two essences that would require them to abandon their natural density. The divine nature did not cease to be a creating God, nor did the human nature cease to be a created human. Render the related occurrences of “contrivance” as “transformation.”

Contrivance and change are only necessitated when the mixture is between two heavy, dense created things—such as water and wine, water and honey, clarified butter and honey, or gold with silver, copper, and lead. All of these are weighty and dense; whenever one density mingles with another, change is inevitable until the mixture settles into the state dictated by those weights. After mixing, the wine is no longer wine, nor the water water; both have departed from their original essences, yielding something altered, neither element in its own right and none of it free from corruption and transformation.

By contrast, when the union is between a subtle created thing and a dense created thing, no change or contrivance accompanies that union—just as soul and body merge to form a single human being;