Fourth, they affirm His existence, knowledge, power, and the like on the basis that He resembles others described in these terms.

Fifth, they assert likeness to creation in the attributes they acknowledge from revelation. Thus, they apply analogy and assert likeness in what they affirm through reason, what they acknowledge from revelation, and the attributes they deny, whether revealed or established by reason. They also liken Him to deficient and nonexistent things. These, then, are the five ways in which they set others equal to Allah and associate partners with Him.

Their denial of His attributes likewise takes several forms:

First, denying what the revealed names and attributes signify.

Second, denying truths established by reason.

Third, describing Him through privative attributes that do not entail existence. Such attributes can belong only to something nonexistent.

Fourth, combining two contradictories, which characterizes that which does not—and cannot—exist.

Their opponents, by contrast, base their argument on a fortiori reasoning, which is valid according to both revelation and reason. Through such reasoning, they establish that He must be above and separate from creation, and rule out the possibility that neither of two contradictory predicates applies to Him. For His being above the world, although known through the innate disposition, is also established by demonstrative rational arguments founded on a fortiori reasoning, as follows: