—far above!”

Abū al-Hasan thus argued from what is necessarily known: that Allah is not inside bodies or in privies. He specifically mentioned Mary’s womb because this belief is shared with the Christians, who say that Allah dwelt in Mary’s womb when the divine nature clothed itself in human nature. Yet when Christian scholars tell their ordinary followers this, their natural dispositions reject it and their minds resist it, because they find within themselves an immediate, necessary knowledge that rules it out. For, as the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said:

“Every child is born with a natural disposition; then his parents make him a Jew, a Christian, or a Magian.”

Christians are therefore born with a natural disposition that rejects this, but the religion they found their forefathers following is what caused their natural disposition to change. Such is the condition of all these Jahmiyya. For there is not one of them who, when mention is made of