[The Eighth Argument]

It may be said:

The claim that, before the Karrāmiyya, the religious communities agreed that the Lord could not possess anything other than attributes of perfection is ambiguous.

If this means that people have always said that Allah possesses attributes of perfection and is free of deficiencies, the Karrāmiyya affirm this too. But if you mean that, before the Karrāmiyya, people maintained that nothing subject to Allah’s power and will could subsist in Him, this is mistaken.

The majority of people have regarded this as possible, both before and after the advent of Islam. The Torah is filled with descriptions of Allah of this kind, as are the Gospel and the other prophetic revelations, such as the Psalms and the prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah. The leading philosophers also held this view. It is likewise established through mass-transmitted reports that the early generations—the Companions, the Successors, and the scholars of hadith—affirmed it.

Yet when the eternalists raised this objection against this man concerning the attribute of being Creator, he said: “The attribute of being Creator is neither an attribute of deficiency nor an attribute of perfection.”

[The Ninth Argument]

Concerning his statement that the existence of a thing is nobler than its nonexistence, he may be asked:

Is its existence nobler without qualification, or only at a time when its existence is possible and appropriate?

The former is denied, for the existence of compound ignorance is not nobler than