and imagination?! This contradicts what both those who deny and those who affirm the attributes agree upon. Rather, on this supposition, conception and imagination would acknowledge what those who affirm the attributes say concerning the divine essence and attributes, not what the deniers say. This is a clear matter about which no two rational people disagree.

The forty-third point:

What you have related about those of whom you said, “They committed themselves to affirming components and parts,” amounts to no more than their affirming the entity possessing the attributes, which you call a body, while not considering it subject to the perishing and afflictions to which bodies are subject. This amounts to saying that it is a body that cannot be described by the attributes of other bodies, but differs from them in its very nature.

Likewise, you stated:

“They explicitly declare, whenever they appeal to a verse or a report whose apparent meaning suggests bodily organs or limbs, ‘We affirm this meaning for Allah in a manner unlike that in which it applies to created beings.’ Thus they affirm for Allah a face unlike the faces of created beings, and a hand unlike their hands.”

What you have mentioned amounts to no more than their affirming a face and two hands unlike the faces and hands of created beings—as one might say, a body unlike other bodies. It is perfectly evident that affirming this is not something that conception and imagination cannot accept. Rather, conception and imagination are particularly receptive to such things, as has already been explained more than once; for conception and imagination can conceive of various kinds of