For this reason, those who draw the distinction differentiate between pure nonexistence and the absence of an attribute in something capable of possessing it. What is wholly nonexistent cannot be described as blind, deaf, or the like. Nor can pure nonexistence be called ignorant or powerless, or be affirmatively described as neither knowing nor powerful. Indeed, what is nonexistent cannot be described by any attribute that entails existence. Thus, describing something as blind or deaf negates hearing and sight in something capable of possessing them, not in something nonexistent, which cannot be described as possessing any positive attribute.

There is therefore a difference between negating an attribute that could belong to its subject, whether in the mind or in external reality, and negating an attribute that cannot belong to its subject either in the mind or in external reality. Thus, when one says, “What is nonexistent has no end,” or “What is nonexistent is infinite,” the meaning is that what is nonexistent has no reality that could be finite or infinite, just as it has no reality capable of being living or not living, knowing or not knowing, powerful or not powerful.

If, then, someone’s statement about Allah that He is infinite means that His essence admits of being described neither as having an end nor as lacking one, this is equivalent to saying that Allah is neither deaf, nor dead, nor ignorant, meaning that His essence admits of being described neither by these attributes nor by their absence. The meaning would then be that He cannot be called deaf or not deaf, dead or not dead. This is worse than the statements of those heretics who refuse to affirm the names