Section
With this premise established, it becomes clear that the statement, “Anything that rational proof establishes as implying corporeality is ambiguous,” is an answer that neither settles the dispute nor yields any benefit, nor distinguishes the sound from the unsound or the deviant from the upright.
For everyone who denies any of the names and attributes claims to possess rational proof that what he denies implies corporeality and is therefore ambiguous. This would require treating all the names and attributes as ambiguous. In turn, this would entail complete negation: no meaning could be understood from Allah’s names and attributes, nor could any distinction be drawn between the meanings of the Ever-Living, the All-Knowing, the All-Powerful, the Most Merciful, the Compeller, and the Source of Peace; nor between creation and rising over, on the one hand, and causing death and giving life, on the other; nor between coming and arrival, on the one hand, and pardon and forgiveness, on the other.
To explain: those who deny the attributes among the Jahmiyyah, the Mu‘tazilah, the esoteric Qarmatians, and the philosophers who agree with them say:
“If you say that the Quran is uncreated and that Allah Most High possesses knowledge, power, and will, then you have ascribed corporeality to Him. For rational proof has established that this implies corporeality, since these are properties that do not subsist independently, but only in something else—whether they are called attributes, accidents, or anything else.”