and both are self-evidently unsound to all rational people. His reply would be that affirming the attributes his opponent declares impossible is not impossible at all, and that both scripture and reason attest to them. If his opponent then begins disputing what scripture or reason indicates, he brands him a sophist or a Qarmatian. Yet precisely the same applies to mercy and love, for his opponents contest whether revelation and reason provide conclusive evidence for them.

His opponents should then be asked:

“By what have you established that He is All-Knowing and All-Powerful?”

Whatever evidence from revelation and reason they use to establish this also establishes will. Whatever specious objections they raise against it can be met with similar objections against His being All-Knowing and All-Powerful. When the discussion reaches the affirmation of real qualities and the claim that these entail temporal origination, or composition and dependence, the answer is what we have established elsewhere: this entails neither temporal origination nor any composition necessitating dependence upon something other than Him.

They can also be confronted with the false objections by which those who negate the divine attributes deny the divine essence itself. They must acknowledge the existence of the Lord, the Creator, which is known through the innate disposition with which people are created, necessary rational knowledge, conclusive rational proofs, the agreement of nations, and other evidence. They can then be challenged to establish an existence of the kind familiar to us, or an existence whose modality they know. They will inevitably have to resort to affirming something whose reality does not resemble other realities. Thus, what is said concerning all the other names and attributes by which He has described Himself follows the same principle as what is said concerning His very Self—glorified and exalted is He.