Thirty-seventh angle: It may be said: The only thing that could prevent this is either its pre-eternity or something else; you have mentioned nothing else, and as for pre-eternity, you have no proof for it(1), as has already been shown—for they have produced no evidence that it is eternal, the way knowledge is eternal in every respect.

Thirty-eighth angle: Grant, then(2), that it is eternal; its being eternal does not require it to be a single attribute. You yourself maintain that the Lord’s attributes—knowledge, power, hearing, sight, life, and the rest—are all eternal, yet their pre-eternity never obliged you to say that each attribute is identical to the other. On what grounds, then, did you deem the pre-eternity of “command” to mean that it is the very same as “prohibition,”(3) or that prohibition is identical to declarative speech? Why did you not speak about the kinds of speech as you speak about the attributes, just as some of your own associates have done?

Thirty-ninth angle: The more exacting scholars among your own party know that there is no proof(4) for negation beyond the attributes they already acknowledge. No scriptural or rational evidence has been established for such negation; therefore, to deny something without evidence is to speak without knowledge(5). The absence of knowledge is not knowledge of absence, and in our view the absence of a proof does not entail the non-existence of that for which knowledge and proof are sought.