They may be answered as follows:

You have not based what you deny on the Quran, the Sunnah, or scholarly consensus, for these expressions do not occur in the scriptural texts. Rather, your statement—“If He were seen, He would be in a direction; whatever is in a direction is a body; and whatever is a body has come into existence”—consists of assertions whose validity you claim to have established through reason. You must therefore provide rational evidence for this denial, and it must be examined by reason itself.

If one of the affirmers among the speculative theologians of the Murji’ah and others, such as the Karrāmiyyah and the Hishāmiyyah, opposes you and says, “Let this indeed be a necessary consequence of seeing Him, and let Him be a body,” or says, “I say that He is a body,” and debates you on this using rational arguments, establishing it through reason just as you have denied it through reason, you cannot say to him, “You are an innovator for affirming that He is a body.” He will reply, “And you are innovators for denying it.” Innovation in denying it is therefore like innovation in affirming it, if not greater. Indeed, the denier is more deserving of the charge of innovation than the affirmer, because the affirmer has affirmed what the texts affirm and advanced this argument to support and reinforce the texts, to accord with them, and to refute those who oppose what they require.

Even supposing that he introduced an innovation in doing so, his innovation would be less serious than that of someone whose denial contradicted the texts n and rejected what they require and entail. For whatever contradicts the texts is an innovation by the consensus of Muslims, whereas something not known to contradict them may nevertheless be called an innovation.