As for the statement:

“Just as His essence must be declared free of the characteristics of created beings, so too must His true speech.”

This is akin to the rhymed prose of soothsayers, which establishes no truth and refutes no falsehood. Would you say that every one of His words or other attributes possesses every attribute with which the Lord is described?

When it is said that the Lord, exalted is He, is God, powerful, the Creator, and worshipped, must any of His words or attributes therefore be God, powerful, a creator, and worshipped?

This statement resembles that of the Christians who say:

“Just as the hypostasis of existence is God, so too are those of the Word and the Spirit.”

Thus they ascribe to the attributes the divinity they ascribe to the essence. Now the Lord, exalted is He, has speech that subsists in a locus and cannot exist apart from it, for speech must have a locus without which it cannot exist. Must the Lord therefore depend on a locus in which to subsist, just as speech does?

His speech must, however, be declared free of every deficiency and flaw, for He is worthy of perfection in His essence, attributes, and actions. It is impossible for Him to lack the attributes of perfection—life, knowledge, power, speech, and other such attributes—when some of His creatures possess them. The One described by these attributes, whose existence is necessary and who is eternal and without beginning, has a greater right to the attributes of perfection than created beings do. Every perfection possessed by a created being comes from the Creator, who bestowed it upon that being and granted it. The One who bestows and grants perfection is Himself more entitled to it and more worthy of it.