Third:

An attribute cannot unite with something and clothe itself in it unless the one it qualifies does so as well. The Father himself would then be the Messiah, yet the Christians agree that the Messiah is not the Father. Their doctrine is self-contradictory: its parts invalidate one another. They make him a god who creates and provides sustenance, but do not make him the Father, who is God, while saying, “There is one God.”

Some of their theologians, such as Yahyā ibn ʿAdī, have likened this to a man described as a physician, an accountant, and a scribe, with different functions corresponding to each attribute. The response is: this is true, but their doctrine is not analogous to it. If you say that the Lord exists, lives, and knows, and that each attribute has its own implications, then plainly, if it is the essence bearing these attributes that enters into union, all the attributes accompany it. When Zayd, the physician, accountant, and scribe, puts on a coat of mail, all these attributes remain inherent in him. If, however, it is one attribute rather than another that clothes itself in something, the same untenable consequence returns.

If they say, “It is the essence together with one attribute rather than another that clothes itself in something,” this necessarily entails separating the two attributes, which is impossible. Attributes that subsist in a single subject and are inseparable from it cannot be separated from one another. Some attributes of created beings may cease to exist while the others remain, unlike the attributes of the Lord, blessed and exalted is He.

Fourth:

The Messiah himself is neither Allah’s words nor any of His attributes. Rather, he was created by Allah’s word. He was called a Word because he was created through “Be,” without the usual manner of conception. As the Exalted says:

“Indeed, the likeness of Jesus before Allah is as that of Adam. He created him from dust, then said to him, ‘Be,’ and he was.”

And the Exalted says: “That is Jesus