His attributes can only be attributes of perfection,” is weaker than his appeal to their consensus that He is free of any attribute of deficiency. For His being free of attributes of deficiency is well known in people’s discourse. As for the statement that His attributes can only be attributes of perfection, this wording is not widely known or established among the leading scholars. Those among them who use it do so only in a general sense, because it is firmly established in people’s hearts that Allah is characterized by perfection, not deficiency.

Such general statements do not resolve the finer points of these questions. If someone who used this expression were asked, “Is His performing actions Himself, which He has the power to perform and wills, an attribute of deficiency or of perfection?” he would be more inclined either to count this among the attributes of perfection or to refrain from answering than to regard it as an attribute of deficiency.

The sixth argument:

This consensus is an argument against them. For if we presented to reason two beings, one able to speak and act by his will, with speech and action subsisting in him, and the other unable to do so—whose speech is necessarily either beyond his power and not willed by him, or separate from him—reason would judge the first to be the more perfect of the two beings. Likewise, if we presented to reason