encounter implications far graver than those they sought to escape. For the very acknowledgment of necessary existence carries such implications, which are inseparable from existence itself. This makes clear that the truth lies in abandoning these reinterpretations altogether, and that accepting some while rejecting others is arbitrary and contradictory.

The third argument is this: if nothing is known to bear all these names and attributes except a body, then one of two things must follow. Either affirming what they call a body is, in fact, correct—even though the early generations and the imams did not use the word “body,” they used expressions that explicitly convey the meaning these people designate by that word—or all these names and attributes, even though they are applied only to a body, are nevertheless applied to Allah, Mighty and Majestic, while He is not a body.

In this way, we supply anyone who affirms any of these attributes with a reply to those who deny them. We say: if we agree that He is living, knowing, and powerful, and is not