Likewise, to claim that He does not speak or that He does not descend is no attribute of praise or perfection; rather, such statements liken Him either to deficient beings or to things that do not exist. Some of these descriptions apply only to what is nonexistent, while others fit nothing but inanimate or defective creatures.

Hence, whoever says, “He is neither separate from the universe nor within it,” is comparable to someone who says, “He subsists neither by Himself nor by another; He is neither eternal nor originated; He is neither prior to the world nor concomitant with it.”

[Whoever denies a perfect attribute of God necessarily describes Him with its opposite.]

Accordingly, anyone who asserts that He is not living, not hearing, not seeing, and not speaking must, by that very assertion, be portraying Him as dead, deaf, blind, and mute.

[Objection]

If someone argues, “Blindness is the absence of sight in one whose nature allows sight, whereas what is incapable of sight, like a wall, is described as neither blind nor seeing,”

[Response from several angles: First]

we reply: This is merely a convention you have coined; otherwise, whatever is characterized by the absence of life, hearing, sight, and speech may just as well be labeled dead, deaf, blind, dumb, and inarticulate.