the meaning of the Quran, in your view, is eternal; rather, only part of its meaning is.

As for whether these meanings are multiple or one, and the multiplicity or unity of knowledge and will, he has not discussed this. It has been discussed elsewhere.

He may also be told:

Nothing you have mentioned establishes that the wording which conveys it is created by Him, glorified be He, rather than by a human being. You have merely asserted that he hears words within himself, without offering any proof of this.

Even supposing that something of this kind could be called Allah’s speech, the assertion that the Quran belongs to this category would require evidence. He has provided none, and he has no evidence except arguments whose weakness he himself has acknowledged: Ibn Sīnā’s argument for denying the divine attributes; the argument of the Muʿtazilah and the Ashʿarīs that whatever does not precede temporal events is itself temporally originated; or the Muʿtazilah’s argument for denying the divine attributes, which is weaker still.

This is the sum of what he and others like him have presented in their books. Their arguments come down to those based on temporal origination, multiplicity, and specification. They have no fourth argument.

He may then be told:

Even if we grant your preceding premises, your position on the Quran is false, because you cannot say about it what you said about Allah’s speaking to Moses. Allah did indeed speak to Moses, yet you and other heretics like you claimed that this means He created audible speech in Moses’ ears. Similarly, the Muʿtazilah—who are better than you—claimed that this was audible speech which He created in a physical body and which was heard by