He said: “Accordingly, whoever says that He is a substance, meaning that He exists without being in a subject—a subject being a substrate with its own established essence that sustains what inheres in it—as the philosophers have said; or that He is a substance, meaning that He subsists in Himself and does not depend on another for His existence, as Abū al-Husayn al-Basrī has said, while acknowledging that he does not ascribe to Him the properties of substances: such a person agrees in meaning but errs in terminology. For the Arabs are not reported to have used ‘substance’ to mean ‘that which subsists in itself,’ nor has revelation authorized this usage.”

The response is:

If someone’s statement that He is a substance unlike other substances and a body unlike other bodies agrees with your position in meaning, and the dispute between you and them concerns wording alone, then his argument prevails against you in both wording and meaning.

As for wording, this is so on two grounds:

First, just as the Lawgiver has not authorized affirming these terms of Him, neither has He authorized denying them of Him. You have refrained from calling Him “generous” because revelation has not authorized it; yet you may not say that He is “not generous,” since revelation has not authorized this negation either. Rather, if only what revelation has authorized may be said, neither the affirmation nor the negation may be used.