Temporal origination and the imperfection inherent in created beings necessarily accompany one another. The Lord is free of each on two grounds: each is intrinsically impossible for Him, and each necessarily entails the other, which is likewise intrinsically impossible for Him. Thus each, considered in two respects, is both evidence and something established by evidence, showing that the Lord is free of it and of what it implies—its necessary concomitant.

Need of another and dependence upon another necessarily entail temporal origination and the imperfection inherent in created beings. I use the qualification “inherent” to encompass all created beings. Otherwise, some imperfections characterize certain created beings but not others, and are therefore not inherent in every created being. The Lord is free of these as well. Yet if He is free of the imperfection inherent in every created being, He is all the more certainly free of imperfections peculiar to some created beings. For if a created being is held to be free of an imperfection, the Creator is all the more deserving of being declared free of it. This is the method of arguing “with greater reason,” as indicated by the Quran in several places.

In our response to “The Tadmur Questions,” entitled “Establishing the Affirmation of the Names and Attributes and Explaining the True Reconciliation of Divine Decree and Revealed Law,” we explained that, when declaring the Lord free of something, it is not permissible to rely merely on its absence from revelation and transmitted reports, saying: “Whatever is mentioned in the reports, we affirm; whatever is not mentioned, we do not affirm—rather, we deny it,” and basing our denial on the absence of a report.