and does not mingle with anything else.” When they say, “This is inconceivable,” the others reply, “And so is that.”
The negationists’ position is more contrary to reason than that of the proponents of divine indwelling. Thus, when the two positions are presented to people of sound innate disposition, their aversion to the negationists’ position is greater than their aversion to the position of those who affirm divine indwelling. Likewise, regarding his claim that it is impossible to be finite in some directions but not others: some of those who say that He is upon the Throne do maintain that He is finite in some directions but not others.
Even if their position is deemed false, the negationists’ position is more false still. As for his argument against them that it is impossible for one end to be finite rather than the other, because neither has priority, or because this would require an external specifying factor, they say to him: “You continually affirm specification of this kind, as when you say that will selects one of two equivalent alternatives without anything necessitating that choice. When you are told, ‘This entails favouring one of two equivalent alternatives without a determining factor,’ you reply, ‘That is the nature of will.’ Will is one of His attributes. If His essence necessarily entails something whose nature is to favour one of two equivalent alternatives by itself, without a determining factor, then it is all the more fitting that His essence should itself entail favouring one of two equivalent alternatives without a determining factor.”
This argument is even more binding on the Muʿtazilites and the philosophers. The Muʿtazilites say that an agent possessing power and free choice favours one alternative without a determining factor. The philosophers say that the essence alone entails giving preference to contingent things, without any other determining factor. Thus, they all agree that the essence necessitates favouring one of two equivalent alternatives without a determining factor. How, then, can they deny that it necessarily entails singling out one side without a specifying factor?