things.

This is impossible because it is a deficiency, not because it is newly arising. He is eternally and forever exalted above and free from death, drowsiness, sleep, incapacity, fatigue, ignorance, and all other deficiencies. None of these may inhere in Him, whether eternal or newly arising, because they contradict the perfection necessarily belonging to His essence.

If one of two contradictories necessarily belongs to an essence, the other must be excluded. Thus, whatever newly arising things and attributes the Lord is free from, He is free from them because of what requires their exclusion—not because of the feature they share with the perfections that inhere in Him.

As for the third question, namely his statement, “There is no need for that,” the response is: Not everything whose necessity we do not know may be categorically denied. Allah has told us that He recorded the decrees of His creatures before creating them, although no need for this is known. Likewise, according to those who affirm the attributes, He created Adam with His hand, despite His ability to create him as He created others.

Furthermore, if the absence of any need for something entails denying its existence, then all created things should be denied, for Allah needs nothing.

As for what inheres in His essence, whatever creation needs must be affirmed. Where creation has no need for it, this particular proof establishing it is absent. Yet even the absence of any proof whatsoever does not entail that the thing to be established is absent in reality, although it may entail that the person seeking to establish it has no knowledge of it. Still less does the absence of one particular proof entail its nonexistence.

Moreover, the Lord Most High may possess attributes of perfection unknown to His servants. They cannot deny them on the grounds that there is no need for them.