One of the problems, then, is that a man will appeal to every scriptural proof he happens to find—even if the wording itself is weak or its implication is tenuous—while neglecting stronger, clearer rational arguments, whether out of ignorance of them, aversion to them, or some other reason. Standing opposite such men are others who likewise claim to uphold affirmation, indeed the Sunnah and the mainstream community, yet who refuse, in the matter of God’s attributes, to rely on the reports of God and His Messenger. They have abandoned that path altogether, dismissing the Book and the Sunnah from this mandate, and will trust in this field only what they imagine to be rational demonstrations.

These latter are more confused in their rationalizations than the former are in their use of transmitted reports. You will hear one of them assert, “We know this necessarily,” while another avers—by reflection, or even by necessity—the very opposite. One side insists, “Unadulterated reason points only to what we say,” and the other side contradicts them on that very claim. When someone among them tries to reconcile the two kinds of proofs, he ends up finding the evidences evenly balanced, so he remains stuck in bewilderment and suspension of judgment; or else he falls into direct contradiction, affirming one thing here and denying it there.

This is exactly what you see among many dialectical theologians and philosophers: one of them may join the two contradictories together, or dismiss them both—though the two contradictories, affirmation and negation, can neither coexist nor both be removed. Such an approach yields only doubt and indecision; its proponent vacillates between the two opposing beliefs—affirmation and negation—just as he hesitates between two conflicting wills.

This, in fact, is the predicament of their sharpest minds: Abū al-Maʿālī, Abū Ḥāmid, al-Shahrastānī, Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, and al-Āmidī. As for Ibn Sīnā and those of his ilk