[Section]

We have now seen what people of all groups have said concerning volitional acts subsisting in the essence of Allah Most High, the weakness of the evidence advanced by those who deny them, and Abū ‘Abd Allāh al-Rāzī’s and others’ acknowledgment of that weakness. We have also seen that he relied on the argument from perfection and imperfection, which is likewise weak, as explained above. He, Abū al-Hasan al-Āmidī, and those who followed them presented the arguments of those who deny such acts and refuted them all. Their only argument for denying them was that whatever subsists in Him, if it is an attribute of perfection, its absence before it comes into being must constitute an imperfection; and if it is an imperfection, He must be characterized by imperfection. Allah is exalted above that.

[The Weakness of al-Rāzī’s and Others’ Criticism of the Perfection–Imperfection Argument]

This argument is weak—perhaps even weaker than those they criticized—for one could refute it in numerous ways.

The First Way

It may be said:

What is said of His acts that subsist in Him and come into being through His will and power applies equally to His acts that consist of effects separate from Him, which He brings into being through His will and power.

Those who affirm the eternity of the world raised this objection against them, saying: “If the act is an attribute of perfection, it follows that He lacked perfection in eternity; and if it is an attribute of imperfection, it follows that He is characterized by imperfections.” They answered them by saying that it is neither an attribute of imperfection nor one of perfection.

This is comparable to another argument advanced by those who deny such acts: if He were receptive to something originated subsisting in Him, that receptivity would be inherent in His essence, whereas the existence from eternity of the object of that receptivity is impossible.