Accordingly—and this is among the clearest self-evident truths (1)—if that is so, on what basis do you claim that speech cannot consist of many attributes? What compelled you to insist that it be a single attribute, or confined to some fixed number? The pre-eternity you invoked does not prevent plurality, for (2) in your own view the attributes are multiple and eternal, while it is well-known that the Eternal One is a single God. To claim that He has no eternal attribute is necessarily false, for a being devoid of all attributes is impossible, as established elsewhere. Your own colleagues concede this; were they to deny it, their entire position on the question of speech would collapse.

Fortieth angle: You say that this is grasped by a proof that establishes its pre-eternity and precludes its being diverse or differentiated. We reply: the proof of its pre-eternity does not entail that it is a single meaning (3), as has already been shown; and if it does not entail that it is one meaning, it certainly does not require that command be the same as prohibition, or as declarative speech, or as enquiry.

You then add (4) that there is a proof preventing it from being diverse or different. We answer: since you have presented no evidence (5) that this is identical to that—and it is in fact known that this is not that—the same judgment applies here as in the case of hearing and sight: although they share the generic term “perception,” neither is identical to the other. Should one then say that each is other than the other, or that it differs (6) from it? Or should one say that it is neither other than it nor different (6) from it, or