Al-Qalānisi and others followed this line, but the majority responded: “This claim is self-evidently false, for it would force all diverse realities to collapse into a single entity. We know by necessity that if the Torah were rendered into Arabic its meanings would still not be the meanings of the Qur’an; that the meaning of the Verse of the Throne is not the meaning of the Verse of Debt; and that the meaning of Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ is not the meaning of ‘Perish the hands of Abū Lahab.’ Likewise, the meaning of a declarative statement is not the meaning of a command, no matter how one defines ‘meaning’—whether as knowledge, will, or anything else distinct from them. We know perfectly well that they are not identical.

They then said to those people: ‘If it is admissible for a declarative statement to be identical with a command or a prohibition—so that the two realities become one—then you must also allow that knowledge is power, power is will, and that all the divine attributes are but a single attribute.’

When this objection was raised, some responded—just as al-Āmidī reports—‘This is a question for which we have no answer.’ Others said, ‘The problem is rational, whereas we proved the multiplicity of the attributes by consensus, not by pure reason. Humanity is divided into those who affirm the attributes and those who deny them; every affirmer holds that they are multiple. To affirm the attributes yet declare them one is therefore a breach of consensus.’

This was the method adopted by Qāḍī Abū Bakr al-Bāqillānī, Imām al-Ḥaramayn al-Juwaynī, and others; it is likewise the approach of Qāḍī Abū Yaʿlā with regard to the divine attributes and kalām in general.