The thirty-ninth argument: It may be said that the claim, “Raising the hands towards heaven entails corporealism,” is no more formidable than the objections directed against anyone who affirms any of the divine names and attributes. For the heretical philosophers and their followers, who combine contradictories by saying, “He is neither existent nor nonexistent, neither living nor dead,” or, “He cannot be described as existent or nonexistent, living or dead,” maintain that these names can apply only to a body. Those who deny attributes such as knowledge and power say that these attributes can subsist only in a body. Those who deny that Allah can be seen and hold that the Quran is created say that only a body can be seen and that speech can subsist only in a body. They argue for this more forcefully than this author argues that those who raise their hands in supplication do so on the basis of their belief that the One invoked is a body.

In that case, the deniers’ claim that corporealism necessarily follows from the position of those who affirm these names and attributes must be either true or false. If it is true, then corporealism must be true, since affirming the names and attributes is known to be true through rational necessity and scriptural texts, whereas the deniers’ position entails combining contradictories and other forms of sophistry. If their claim that corporealism necessarily follows is false, then there is even stronger and more compelling reason to deny that it follows in the case of those who supplicate.

The fortieth argument: It may be said that, as is well known, people are often said to contradict themselves in this matter: one of them affirms something—whether the existence of a Necessary Being, a name, or an attribute—while denying its necessary implications, or denies corporeality