characterized by either this or that,” and if it is said, “He is characterized by it,” then He is characterized by both.

It is well known that theologians of most schools commonly divide the attributes into attributes of action and those unrelated to action, even though some of them maintain that actions do not subsist in Him. They thus describe Him in terms of actions, saying, for example, that He is Creator and Provider, although in their view these are matters that come into being after previously not existing.

When those among the philosophers and others who affirm an infinite succession of events said to them, “If action is an attribute of perfection, He must have possessed it from eternity; if it is an attribute of deficiency, He can never possess it,” they replied that action is an attribute of neither perfection nor deficiency.

The fifth argument:

His appeal to the statement, “The community has agreed that