The reason for this is that the terms “body” and “likening Allah to creation” are ambiguous and liable to cause confusion, as we shall explain, if Allah Most High wills. These negationists do not mean by the “body” they deny what the word means in ordinary language. As all rational people agree, something possessing attributes need not be a body in the linguistic sense recorded by the lexicographers. We shall explain this later. Rather, by “body” they mean something they believe to be composed of parts, and they believe that anything in which attributes subsist is composed of parts. This belief is false. Rather, the Lord possesses attributes without being a body composed of indivisible substances or of matter and form, as they claim. We shall explain this, if Allah Most High wills. Thus, the existence of the attributes does not entail the impossibility they allege; rather, they have erred in asserting this necessary connection. Whatever is unquestionably entailed, however, must be affirmed and may not be denied of Allah Most High.
Their error therefore arose from using an ambiguous expression, while one of the two premises is false—either the first or the second—as will be explained, if Allah Most High wills. These are concise, comprehensive principles, which are discussed at length elsewhere.