Likewise, his rejection of union provides no argument against the union they claim. For they do not maintain that both entities remain as they were, or that either one remains. Rather, they liken union to the union of water and milk, water and wine, or fire and iron.

Thus, his statement, “This is not union,” is a dispute over terminology: they call this union. What must be demonstrated is the falsity of the indwelling and union they affirm; otherwise, the argument addresses something other than the point at issue.

As for the imams who refuted the proponents of indwelling, they disproved precisely what those people claimed, even though the latter do not acknowledge that they affirm indwelling—just as those who say that He is neither inside the world nor outside it do not acknowledge negation. Indwelling necessarily follows from the position of the former, just as negation necessarily follows from that of the latter; and negation is worse than indwelling.

For this reason, ordinary Jahmīs believe only that He is everywhere, and their elite disclose nothing else to their ordinary followers. Reason recoils more strongly from negation than from indwelling, and rejects the claim that He is neither inside the world nor outside it more strongly than the claim that He is everywhere. Thus, the early generations refuted the better of their two positions—the one closer to reason—and this necessarily establishes the falsity of the other position with even greater force.