imagination” is a claim you neither reported them as making nor established by your argument, such that one could say they must acknowledge it. Your argument established only that nonexistence and the defects inseparable from it, such as illness and the like, are impossible for Him. This is true, but nothing in it entails that the particular nature of His essence cannot be fathomed by mental conception and imagination—even though this is true when correctly understood. For knowing that He exists necessarily, and that nonexistence and whatever entails it are impossible for Him, says nothing whatsoever, whether affirmatively or negatively, about whether He can be apprehended through reason and imagination, mental conception and sensory perception, or any other means, much less whether the true nature of His essence is known or unknown. What necessary connection, then, is there between the argument and the claim?! Indeed, even if you had presented sound arguments denying that He has any likeness—as we have established—this would have had no bearing on denying knowledge of His true nature, or denying that He can be known through sensory perception, imagination, or any other means. How much less, then, when you have mentioned only what establishes His necessary existence!

The twenty-eighth point:

These people, along with all other adherents of the Sunnah, say that the true nature of the Creator is unknown to human beings. Hence, they agree with the early generations in denying knowledge of His essential nature and the manner of