that if someone were to invoke the Muslims’ consensus that Allah Most High is free from deficiency and defect against those who affirm the divine attributes, claiming that affirming them constitutes deficiency and defect—or vice versa—those who affirm the attributes would reply:

“We have not agreed with you that this meaning, which you call deficiency and defect, must be denied. Do not argue against us on the basis of agreement over an expression whose meaning we have not agreed upon.”

They could then say:

“We dispute this meaning with you, even if you call it deficiency and defect.”

Thus, this cannot constitute an established proof unless evidence is provided that rules out that meaning, other than a consensus that depends upon their agreement.

The fourth argument:

It may be said to him: Your statement,

“The community has agreed that all His attributes are attributes of perfection,”

provides you with no proof if you mean all His attributes that are inseparable from Him. If you mean what comes into being through His power and will, this is not a matter of consensus. For you and other theologians say:

“An attribute of action is neither an attribute of perfection nor of deficiency, and Allah is characterized by it after previously not being so.”

Thus, His being Creator and Originator, just and beneficent, and the like are, in your view, matters that come into being and are renewed, not attributes of praise or perfection. If you say,

“The effects do not subsist in Him, unlike what does subsist in Him,”

you are told:

Grant that this is so. But concerning what comes into being through His power and will, either it is said that He is characterized by it, or it is not said that He is characterized by it. If it is said, “He is not