they have employed is what logicians call a disjunctive conditional, and what they themselves, in their discipline, call the argument by testing and division.

The argument contained in the verse is what is known in logic as a conjunctive conditional, which differs from the disjunctive conditional. Anyone who gives the matter even the slightest consideration within that discipline will see the difference between the two arguments.

Moreover, the impossible conclusions reached by their argument differ from the impossible conclusion reached by the argument of Scripture. Their argument leads to the conclusion that either the world is neither existent nor nonexistent, or it is both existent and nonexistent, or God is powerless and overpowered. These are several impossibilities, each impossible at all times.

The impossible conclusion reached by the argument of Scripture, however, is not impossible at all times. Rather, its impossibility is tied to a particular time: that the world should be corrupt at the time it exists. It is as though He were saying: ‘If there were in them gods other than Allah’—the world would be corrupt at this very moment. He then rules this out by stating that it is not corrupt, so it necessarily follows that there is only one God.”

I say: The corruption mentioned in the verse is not restricted to any particular time. Nor does corruption mean the impossibility of existence supposed to result when two agents thwart one another, with one willing something and the other willing its opposite. Nor does it mean the impossibility of action supposed to result from a single effect having two agents. All of this entails nonexistence.