for the Pre-Eternal, Necessary Being is more entitled to it than any originated, contingent creature. A full treatment of these points is set out elsewhere.
[One rational method for establishing the divine attributes: if He is not described by one of two opposites, He must be described by the other]
The point at hand is that one of the approaches adopted by the leading Imams—and by the later Sunnī dialecticians who followed them—is to argue that, were God not characterized by one of a pair of mutually exclusive attributes, He would necessarily be characterized by the other. Thus, if He were not described as living, He would have to be described as dead; if He were not described as all-powerful, He would have to be described as incapable; and if He were not described as hearing, seeing, and speaking, He would have to be described as deaf, dumb, and mute. By the same reasoning, if He were not described as being apart from the created order, He would have to be deemed a part of it. Denying Him one member of an opposing pair inevitably entails affirming the other—and that other is a defect from which even the most perfect of created beings is declared free; all the more, then, must the Creator be exalted above it.
[Another method for establishing the attributes]
This line of reasoning differs from our other statement that these are attributes of perfection possessed by created beings, so the Creator is even more worthy of them. The method of proving perfect attributes in and of themselves is distinct from the method of proving them by negating their contraries.
[An objection to the first method]
A faction of the deniers has raised a well-known objection to this proof, thereby casting confusion among the people. As a result, many who affirm the attributes have come to think that the objection is valid and have consequently regarded this proof as weak—an attitude adopted by certain theologians, including al-Āmidī and the like—even though that objection constitutes the very foundation of the doctrine espoused by the Ismāʿīlī Qaramita and others of the Jahmite persuasion.