consensus, which he regards as yielding only probable knowledge. The texts supporting it are fewer and weaker than those establishing Allah’s being above His creation.

Since this is so, and Allah Most High’s being above His creation is established by revelation, revelation affirms what you deny rather than negating it. Nothing in revelation negates this meaning, even if you call it an imperfection. For if their principal reliance is upon consensus, there is no consensus on disputed matters. Undoubtedly, consensus cannot be invoked against texts conveying information, for this would entail consensus having formed in opposition to those texts. That is impossible in matters of information; those who claim it do so only in matters of law, saying: “We infer from consensus that the text has been abrogated.”

[The fourth response]

It may be said: If we posit two existing beings, one mighty and great, greater than the heavens and the earth, capable of encompassing and containing them all, and another to whom one cannot point, who is neither within the world nor outside it, then it is self-evident that the first is more perfect and greater.

If someone says, “If He encompasses the world, this greatness entails His being beneath some part of it,” then it is evident that the other person’s description of Him as neither within the world nor outside it, as one to whom no one can point, to whom nothing ascends and from whom nothing descends, who encompasses nothing, and who is described neither as mighty and great in Himself nor as being