that He has made living, knowing, capable, hearing and seeing has a greater claim to be living, knowing, powerful, hearing and seeing.

And “the Most Generous,” “who taught by the pen,” “taught man what he did not know.” He thus made man knowledgeable, and one who possesses knowledge must be alive. He also honoured him by granting him power, hearing and sight. The Most Generous, who made another knowledgeable, has a greater claim to possess knowledge Himself. The same applies to all other attributes of perfection and praiseworthy qualities.

This is reasoning from a particular created being, whereas the first argument reasons from creation in general. Thus, this establishes the attributes as a matter of necessary knowledge, without strained argumentation. The same applies to reasoning from superiority and a greater claim to perfection: the Lord has a greater claim to perfection than the created being.

These methods are so evident that non-Muslims, whether followers of religious traditions or otherwise, also employ them. Christians, for example, used this method to affirm that Allah subsists in Himself so that He may speak. However, they called Him a “substance” and went astray by making the attributes three—the hypostases.

They said:

“We found that things are divided into substances and things that are not substances. Since substance is the higher of the two kinds, we said: ‘He is a substance.’ Then we found that substances are divided into living and non-living, and that the living is more perfect, so we said: ‘He is living.’ We found that living beings are divided into the nātiq (endowed with reason or speech) and the non-nātiq, so we said: ‘He is nātiq.’”