There is no doubt that the negators do not acknowledge describing Him in terms of impossibility, nonexistence, or deficiencies. Rather, they say: “We describe Him in neither way: we ascribe to Him neither knowledge nor ignorance, neither life nor death, neither power nor incapacity, and neither speech nor muteness.”

When they are told, “If He is not described by an attribute of perfection, He must possess these deficiencies,” they reply: “That applies only to something capable of possessing either attribute.”

The logicians say: “These two are opposed as privation and possession, not as negation and affirmation. Two opposites related by negation and affirmation cannot both be absent, unlike those related by privation and possession, such as life and death, or blindness and sight. Both may be absent if the subject is incapable of possessing either, as with inanimate things. Since these cannot possess life, sight, or knowledge, they are described as neither living nor dead, neither knowing nor ignorant.”

This argument of theirs has perplexed many speculative thinkers, and they have used it to lead many people astray. Even al-Āmidī and other exceptionally intelligent speculative thinkers believed that it was sound and that it undermined the proof used by the early generations, the leading scholars, and the theologians who affirm the divine attributes to establish hearing, sight, and other attributes.

This is among the deceptive arguments of the logicians and philosophers that gained acceptance among these thinkers, leading them away from much sound truth known through clear reason.

There are several responses to this, which we have explained at length elsewhere. One is to say: that which is capable of possessing these attributes, even with the possibility of