subsisting in His essence, whereas the created thing is the entity brought into existence and does not subsist in His essence.” He said:

“This is based on the issue discussed earlier: that He has been characterized from eternity by the attributes arising from acts.”

I say:

Whether an act of speech or will arises in His essence when created beings come into existence is disputed among our fellow scholars and others. This depends on their position concerning the “attributes of action,” such as rising over the Throne, descending, and the like. They nevertheless agree that He has always possessed His attributes, being eternally characterized by them, and that He has acquired no new attribute of perfection. But are the individual utterances and acts eternal, or does perfection consist in His having always been characterized by them in kind?

To summarize the discussion here: is He the Creator and the Generous because of the creatures and blessings He has brought into existence apart from Himself, or because of the attributes of creation and generosity subsisting in Him?

The second is the view of the Hanafīs, the Karrāmiyyah, many hadith scholars, and our fellow scholars according to one of their two views—indeed, the more correct of the two. This is what the statements of Ahmad and other scholars of the Sunnah indicate. According to this view, it is said that He has always been Generous, All-Forgiving, and Creator, just as it is said that He has always been the Speaker. There are two interpretations of this, just as there are two interpretations of “the Speaker”: is it to be classed with “the All-Knowing” or with “the All-Forgiving”?

The first view is that of the Ashʿarīs, based on the position that creation is the created thing itself. On this basis, our fellow scholars’ statement that He was the Creator from eternity means either that He possessed complete power—as one speaks of “a cutting sword”—or that the act would certainly occur subsequently, as when one says: