The truth pertaining to those who deny His actions is as follows: although He is indeed the Agent, His actions are of two kinds—necessary (lazima) and volitional (mutʿaddi)—as the numerous texts (far too many to enumerate) clearly indicate. By affirming His actions and their actual occurrence in Him, all difficulties vanish, the various texts corroborate one another, and you recognize their full accordance with clear reason. If you deny the reality of His actions and their presence in Him—glorified be He—this subject becomes profoundly perplexing for you. You remain at a loss in trying to reconcile the scriptural texts with the principles of the negators, and it is impossible for you to reconcile two direct contradictions or to unite opposing infinities. To clarify: the vain imaginations and corrupt intellects, having understood the Lord’s descent (nuzūl), coming (mujī’), arrival (ītī’), alighting (hubūṭ), and drawing near (dunū) in the same way one understands a creature’s coming, arrival, alighting, and drawing near—namely, as vacating one place and occupying another—have denied the reality of those actions and have thus fallen into two prohibitions: the prohibition of tashbīh (anthropomorphism) and the prohibition of ta’ṭīl (denial of attributes). Were these weak minds to know that His descent, exalted be He, His coming, arrival, and drawing near are not like a creature’s—just as His hearing, sight, knowledge, and life are not like that of creatures, nor indeed are His Noble Hand and Noble Face—then, since His descent is unlike any other descent, how could they deny its reality? If they do not entirely negate the reality of His Essence, His attributes, and His actions, they contradict themselves. Whatever meaning they affirm compels them, in denying that very meaning, to the same predicament in which the Ahl al-Sunnah—who affirm for God what He has affirmed for Himself—find themselves, and they can find no escape. See also: Mukhtaṣar al-Ṣawāʿiq al-Mursalah by Ibn al-Qayyim, abridged by al-Mawsilī, vol. 2, pp. 228–229; and consult the views of the Salaf (may God have mercy on them) regarding God’s “coming” (mujī’) on the Day of Resurrection, together with the refutations of their opponents, in al-Radd ʿala al-Jahmiyyah by al-Dārimī, pp. 44–53; al-Dārimī’s Refutation of Bishr al-Marīsī, pp. 148–149; Majmūʿ Fatāwā Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyyah, vol. 6, pp. 8–11; and al-Rawḍah al-Nadiyyah, Sharḥ al-ʿAqīdah al-Wāsiṭiyyah by Shaykh Zayd al-Fayyāḍ, pp. 99–103. (1) God, exalted and transcendent, created Adam with His Hands. He said to Iblīs: “What prevented you from prostrating to that which I created with My Hands? Were you arrogant, or were you among the [high]?” (Qur’an 38:75). And in a hadith narrated by Abū Hurayrah (may God be pleased with him), the Prophet (peace be upon him) said: “Adam and Moses argued before their Lord. Moses said to Adam: ‘You are Adam, whom God created with His Hand, breathed into you from His Spirit, to whom the angels prostrated, and for whom He made you dwell in His Paradise.’” (Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, vol. 4, p. 2043, Book of Predestination).