Fifth Aspect:
The issue of whether the Speaker is the very One in Whom speech subsists—or in Whom it does not—and of whether a living being can speak by means of speech that inheres in something other than himself, is exactly like saying that a living being is living, knowing, powerful, hearing, seeing, and willing through attributes that subsist outside of him, or like claiming that a living, knowing, powerful being possesses no life, knowledge, or power within himself. All of these are rational, substantive inquiries that are not limited to one language over another; rather, they are shared by all nations (1). They also fall under what the messengers have reported about Allah, for ascribing the ruling of an attribute to the locus (2) in which that attribute subsists—or to something else—is an intelligible matter grasped by reason. Thus it is a rational station, and it is also a textual station. For this reason the debate extends to the rest of the attributes, such as knowledge and power, in that a living being cannot be knowing or powerful unless life and knowledge inhere in him.

Sixth Aspect:
Were this station not established, he would never be able to prove (3) that the meanings of command, prohibition, and information subsist, for he has affirmed by consensus that Allah is One who commands, forbids, and informs, and that this is not mere wording but a meaning—namely request, deterrence, and judgment—whether those meanings be will and knowledge or something else.

It is said to him: We do not concede that these meanings subsist in the Essence of Allah unless it is first proven that the One who commands, forbids, and informs is the very One in Whom the meanings of command, prohibition, and information reside. Rather, one could say of them what the Muʿtazilah say about will and knowledge: either they claim that they subsist in no locus at all, or they maintain that His being One who commands and informs is like His being knowing—that it is a ḥāl (a mode) or an attribute—so that when