their disagreement is verbal or it concerns meaning. If it is verbal, that does not conflict with their agreement in meaning. Where the meanings agree, differences in wording do no harm, unless those expressions are prohibited by the revealed Law.

If the disagreement concerns meaning, it too is of two kinds. The first involves diversity: one group affirms something the other does not deny, while the other denies something the first does not affirm. This, too, does not constitute a discernible disagreement, unless each rejects the truth stated by the other. If one affirms something true and the other denies something false, each must agree with the other. If they disagree, both are blameworthy. This is among the disagreements Allah Most High condemns in His Book, where He, Glorified and Exalted, says:

“Indeed, those who differ over the Book are in extreme dissension.” {176}
[al-Baqarah 176]

He also says:

“And do not be like those who became divided and differed after the clear proofs had come to them.”
[Āl ʿImrān 105]

And there are other similar passages.

If, however, their dispute is genuine and their positions truly contradict one another, such that one denies what the other affirms, then—given their agreement in affirming that He is above the Throne, above the world, and their common opposition to the Muʿtazilah, whose approach this al-Rāzī and others like him have followed in this book of his, al-Taʾsīs—this can only take the form of the affirming party maintaining that His being above