corporeality before the general public.

For it is difficult to combine in a single belief the assertions that there exists a being that is not a body and that this being can be seen with the eyes, since what the eyes perceive is either in bodies or is itself a body. Likewise, some have held that this vision amounts to an increase in knowledge at that time. This, too, is unsuitable for disclosure to the general public. For their understanding is inseparable from imagination: whatever they cannot imagine is, to them, nonexistent. Since forming a mental image of what is not a body is impossible, and they cannot affirm the existence of what they cannot imagine, the revealed religion refrained from explicitly stating this meaning to them. He, glorified be He, described Himself to them through attributes accessible to the faculty of imagination, such as hearing, sight, a face, and other attributes, while making known to them that nothing among the existing things they can imagine is of the same kind as Him or resembles Him.

Had the intention been to teach the general public that He is not a body, none of these attributes would have been explicitly stated to them. Rather, since light is the most exalted of the existing things that can be imagined, it was used as an example, being the most familiar of existing things to the senses and the imagination.

Through this manner of representation, they were able to understand the meanings