lies either in their affirming what they have affirmed, or in their contradicting themselves by combining (1) the affirmation of these matters with the denial of bodily organs.
As for the first possibility, it is false. No one has ever said that the position of outright corporealists, who explicitly affirm corporeality and take it to extremes, defies reason; nor has anyone said that they are not to be addressed. Rather, those who refuted extreme corporealists—such as Hishām ibn al-Hakam and his followers—used only rational arguments requiring examination and inference. Their opponent, although wrong in much of what he says, has countered them with arguments comparable to their own. Their case against him was no clearer than his against them, for each group holds both truth and falsehood.
And if someone such as “Abū al-Faraj ibn al-Jawzī” relies solely, in denying these matters, on what speculative thinkers who advocate negation put forward, then those thinkers scarcely ever claim that any affirmation or denial amounts to defiance of reason. Even concerning those who deny the Creator—who are the most ignorant, misguided, and unbelieving of all people, and the most opposed to reason—most of those whose support Abū al-Faraj has enlisted do not claim that their position defies reason. Rather, they claim that its falsity can be known only through examination and inference. Although most of these advocates of negation among the speculative theologians maintain this view, it is not a satisfactory approach.
The point, however, is that these advocates of negation do not claim that knowledge of the falsity of