We have explained elsewhere that acknowledging the Creator and His perfection is innate and self-evident for those whose innate nature remains sound, although abundant evidence also establishes it. Many people may need such evidence when their innate nature has been altered or affected by various conditions.
As for the word “perfect,” al-Ash‘arī reported that al-Jubbā’ī objected to calling Allah perfect, saying that what is perfect has parts joined together. If this dispute concerns the meaning, it is invalid; if it concerns the wording, it is merely verbal. The point here is that His perfection and His freedom from deficiencies can be known through reason.
“A group of speculative theologians,” including Abū al-Ma‘ālī, al-Rāzī, al-Āmidī, and others, claimed that this can be known only through transmitted evidence, specifically “consensus,” and that His freedom from defects and deficiencies is known only through consensus. Their method for denying of Him what they denied consisted solely in denying that He falls under the designation “body,” and the like. They thus departed from the leading theologians who affirmed the divine attributes—such as al-Ash‘arī, Judge Abū Bakr, and Abū Ishāq—and from the early generations and leading scholars before them, who used rational evidence to affirm His hearing, sight, and speech, and to establish His freedom from deficiencies.
Consequently, these later theologians came to rely exclusively on transmitted evidence to affirm these attributes. They say:
If we affirm these attributes on the basis of His freedom from defects, and His freedom from defects is established only through consensus, which is a form of transmitted evidence, while consensus itself is established only through transmitted evidence from the Book