among the Ash‘arīs and others are known to disagree on this.

The affirmers also say:

His being capable of acting Himself is an attribute of perfection, just as His ability to produce an effect distinct from Him is an attribute of perfection. If we present to sound reason one who can perform both acts that subsist in him and acts external to him, and one who lacks one of these two abilities, we know that the first is more perfect. Likewise, if we present to it one who knows himself and others, and one who knows only one of the two, and similar examples.

Those who allow the perpetual occurrence and infinite succession of events say:

If we present to sound reason one who is capable of performing acts in perpetual succession and actually performs them in perpetual succession, and one who is incapable of such acts, the first is more perfect.

Likewise, if we present to reason one who performs successive acts as they come into existence, and one who performs no temporally originated act at all, lest its absence before its existence constitute an absence of perfection, sound reason testifies that the first is more perfect. The second denies his ability to perform any of these acts, and his actual performance of them, lest some should be absent in beginningless eternity. The first affirms his ability to perform them all, and his actual performance of them, although some were absent in beginningless eternity. Thus, the former denies all for fear of the absence of some, while the latter affirms the perfection he does affirm despite the absence of some. The absence of some is therefore unavoidable under either supposition, but the first is distinguished by affirming a perfection in his ability and action that the second does not affirm.

They also say:

The fact that speech does not subsist in His essence prevents it from being