wise or unwise. Likewise, a person’s will may be wise or foolish, and knowledge corresponds to what is known, whether it is wise or foolish. Thus, their position does not, in reality, affirm that Allah is wise. The same applies to “mercy”: for them, it amounts to nothing more than a will that favors one of two equal alternatives without any determining factor, bearing equally upon benefiting His servants and harming them. Thus, their position does not, in reality, affirm either mercy or love.

This has been discussed at length elsewhere, where their inconsistency concerning the divine attributes and actions has been explained: they affirm will while denying love, pleasure, and wisdom. Their inconsistency, and that of everyone who affirms some attributes while denying others, has also been explained, as has the still greater inconsistency of the philosophers who deny will.

Al-Rāzī discussed “the question of will” in al-Matālib al-ʿĀliyah (The Lofty Aims) and favored denying it, because he could not answer the philosophers’ argument on the principles of his Jahmī and Muʿtazilī associates, so he took refuge in the philosophers’ position. He does likewise on other questions: sometimes he favors the philosophers’ view, sometimes that of the speculative theologians, and sometimes he is bewildered and suspends judgment. At the end of his life, he acknowledged that neither group’s approach heals the sick or quenches thirst.

He said:

“I have reflected upon the methods of speculative theology and the approaches of philosophy, but I have not found them to heal the sick or quench thirst. I have found the most direct path to be the way of the Quran. Concerning affirmation, read: ‘The Most Merciful rose over the Throne’; ‘To Him ascend words