in accordance with the diversity of languages and the purposes intended by the various expressions. Every two different sounds(1)—being mutually opposed(2)—cannot coexist in one locus at the same moment, just as no two contrasting colors can be present together.

What makes this crystal-clear is the following: just as we know with certainty that black and white cannot both inhere in a single substrate at the same time, so too we know with the same certainty that a soft sound and a loud sound cannot both reside in one locus(3) at the very same instant(4). This is self-evident and admits no obscurity(5). Distinct sounds are contradictory(6) just as(7) distinct colors are contradictory(8). The Lord—glorified be He—is One, truly characterized by absolute oneness(9), utterly exalted above division and partition(10), multiplicity, composition(11), or aggregation. Once this has been established, it is impossible for mutually opposed sounds to subsist in an Essence that is, in reality, absolutely one; there is no way out of this for them.

If, however, some obstinate emulator(12) should persist and claim that the Lord—glorified be He—(13) is a body composed of parts and assembled from limbs, we shall then shift the discussion with him(14)