The third argument:

He, glorified be He, said:

“Did they not see that it neither spoke to them nor guided them to any way?”

He did not mention its having a body among the faults He identified in it. Rather, He mentioned “that it neither spoke to them nor guided them to any way.” Had merely having a body been a fault and a deficiency, He would have mentioned it.

Thus, the verse shows the inadequacy of the argument advanced by those who cite it as evidence that having a body is a fault and a deficiency. This argument resembles their appeal to setting: they altered its linguistic meaning, making it mean movement, and supposed that Abraham used this as evidence that it was not the Lord of all worlds. Yet even if matters were as they claimed, this would be an argument against them, not for them.

(The fourth argument): Allah Most High described it as a calf—a bodily form that lowed—and then said:

“Did they not see that it neither spoke to them nor guided them to any way?”

And He said in the other surah:

“And so al-Sāmirī cast it in.”

“Then he brought forth for them a calf—a bodily form that lowed—and they said, ‘This is your god and the god of Moses, but he forgot.’”

“Did they not see that it could not return a word to them and had no power to harm or benefit them?”

Thus, He did not confine His description to its merely being a body. Rather, He described it as lowing and made clear that it neither spoke to them nor had any power to harm or benefit them. Its deficiency must therefore arise either from these attributes collectively, from some of them, or from each one individually. If it arises from their combination, this does not show that any one of them, taken separately, is a deficiency. If it arises from some of them, then its being a body is no more likely to be the cause than its lowing. And neither of these is more likely to be the cause than its being deprived of