- “Yet they have taken gods besides Him that create nothing but are themselves created, and that have no power either to harm or benefit themselves, nor any power over death, life, or resurrection.”
That is, among the most astonishing things and the clearest proofs of their foolishness and deficient understanding—indeed, of their wrongdoing and audacity toward their Lord—is that they have taken gods possessing these attributes of utter incapacity. They cannot create anything; rather, they themselves are created, and some of them were even fashioned by their own hands. “And they have no power either to harm or benefit themselves”—neither in the slightest nor in any great measure, since these are indefinite nouns occurring in the context of negation.
“Nor any power over death, life, or resurrection”—that is, resurrection after death. Thus, among the most decisive judgments of reason are the falsity and invalidity of their supposed divinity, and the unsoundness of the reasoning of anyone who takes them as gods and partners ⦗578⦘ with the Creator of all created beings, though no one shares with Him in creation. In His hand alone lie benefit and harm, giving and withholding. He gives life and causes death, raises those in the graves, and gathers them for the Day of Resurrection. He has appointed for them two abodes: an abode of misery, disgrace, and punishment for those who take other gods alongside Him; and an abode of triumph, happiness, and everlasting bliss for those who take Him alone as their object of worship.
Having established through clear and decisive proof the truth of monotheism and the falsity of its opposite, He then established the truth of the Message and the falsity of what was said by those who opposed and objected to it. He said: