there would be something loved and approved without love or approval; indeed, there would be a created thing without an act of creation. All this is maintained by the Jahmīs, such as the Mu'tazila and others like them. For they affirm no act of creation, love, approval, displeasure, or anything else of this kind, but only the effects that necessarily follow from these things in the observable realm.

They disagree over will, but all their positions are false. Some deny it just as they deny all these other things, while others make it an attribute that comes into existence without any will and subsists in no subject. The falsity of both views is self-evident.

The Kullābīs, the Ash'arīs, and others who affirm the divine attributes may agree with them on certain matters—for example, in saying that the act of creation is identical with created things, or in reducing these attributes to will, as some of them do. For what they affirm carries implications analogous to those attaching to what they reject. Pursuing these positions consistently—in which they affirm an effect without its cause—leads to affirming existence without its Creator, which amounts to