This doctrine contains several kinds of error. Among them is the affirmation, without proof, of an eternal entity other than the First. Another is the affirmation of a soul separate from body that can move without a body. This contradicts the doctrine of Aristotle and his followers. These people, however, say: “We maintain that the soul has motion despite being separate from body.” This is correct, but they may be told:
“You have asserted that it is eternal, that it had always been motionless, and that it then moved without a cause. This is untenable. You have offered no proof of its eternity, nor even of its existence and its not being a body.”
Likewise, those philosophers who affirm intellects and souls that cannot be pointed to may be told: “All your arguments for this are weak—indeed, invalid.” Hence al-Tūsī, the foremost of their later thinkers, came to hold that there is no proof establishing their existence.
As for the dialectical theologians, they say: “We know self-evidently that a contingent being must be such that one can point to it as being here or there. Thus, affirming something that cannot be pointed to is self-evidently untenable.” They have stated this in their books.
Al-Rāzī’s claim that they have offered no proof that contingent beings are confined to bodies and accidents is therefore incorrect. Rather, they said: “We know self-evidently that a contingent being must be such that one can point to it, with one side distinguishable from another.” Moreover, many of them—of this group—stated this without qualification concerning the eternal and the originated, and eternal, beginningless sounds.
Some of these people then said: “Despite this, they constitute a single attribute.” Others said: “Rather, they are multiple.” Some of them said that those beginningless sounds are