As for power and knowledge, they denied that either comes into being, because their absence would entail imperfection, since knowledge and power encompass everything. Will and speech, by contrast, do not encompass everything: He, glorified be He, speaks only the truth, but does not speak everything; He wills only what He has prior knowledge of, but does not will everything. Knowledge and power are different, for He knows all things and has power over all things.

This resembles the distinction drawn by the Muʿtazilah, who said that He has a temporally originated will and temporally originated speech, but did not say that His being knowing and His being powerful are temporally originated. Thus, the question applies to both groups alike. If the distinction is sound, well and good; otherwise, they are inconsistent.

Others have affirmed that knowledge of an existing thing subsists in Him after that thing comes into existence, without identifying this with the very knowledge pertaining to it before its existence, as the apparent meaning of the scriptural texts indicates. Various groups among the speculative theologians and philosophers have affirmed this, including Abū al-Husayn al-Basrī, Abū al-Barakāt, and others, as well as others besides the preceding figures, such as Hishām ibn al-Hakam and his like, and Jahm.

If the distinction drawn by the one making it is sound, well and good; otherwise, he is necessarily inconsistent.

They denied that spatial states subsist in Him, because these constitute their proof that the world came into being, just as the Muʿtazilah argued from them. They say that whatever possesses spatial states is never without them.

This is self-evident, as the master Abū al-Maʿālī explained at the beginning of his discussion. He said:

“Let us consider spatial states, for the argument concerning them rests