If you say that the Lord’s knowledge is like this, it follows that He comes to know things after not knowing them, and that His essence comes to speak after He was not speaking. Besides constituting unbelief according to the vast majority of peoples—Muslims, Christians, and others—this is also invalid according to plain reason. A being that lacks knowledge cannot make itself knowledgeable without someone to teach it, and it is impossible for Allah Most High to learn from His creation. Likewise, a being incapable of speech cannot become capable of it without someone making it capable. Nor does any individual generate all his own knowledge. Rather, certain knowledge is created within him which he cannot reject; when he reflects upon it, he acquires further knowledge.
No human being says that a person generates all his own knowledge. Nor does anyone say that he makes himself able to speak after being unable to do so. Rather, the One who enables him to speak is the One who has caused all things to speak.
If they say that the Lord generates some of His knowledge and some of His speech, but not all of it, then it becomes invalid to call knowledge—which is the Word, taken without qualification—the Son. The term “Son” would then designate only some of His knowledge or some of His speech. Yet they claim that the Messiah is the Word and the hypostasis of knowledge without qualification. Not all of that is generated from Him, nor is all of it called a son, as all rational people agree.
Third: Calling a knowledgeable person’s knowledge and speech his offspring is unknown in any of the widely known languages, and it is rationally invalid. His knowledge and speech are like his power and his knowledge. If