Second:

Those who ascribe these attributes to Him could say, “We do not affirm corporeality or spatial location,” just as those who affirm the attributes while denying corporeality say. Their dispute would thus become like the dispute involving those who affirm speech and the attributes of perfection. The arguments of those who ascribe attributes of perfection to Allah and those who ascribe attributes of deficiency to Him would then be the same, and those who deny the attributes would refute both groups by the same method. This is utterly unsound.

Third:

These people deny the attributes of perfection by this same method, whereas His possessing the attributes of perfection is necessary and established by both reason and revelation. This therefore demonstrates the unsoundness of this method.

Fourth:

Those who follow this method contradict themselves. Whenever one of them affirms something, another holds him to the implications of what they both affirm; likewise, whenever one of them denies something, another holds him to the implications of what they both deny.

Thus, when those who deny the attributes, such as the Muʿtazila, say to those who affirm attributes—such as life, knowledge, power, speech, hearing, and sight—“This is corporealism, because these attributes are accidents, and an accident can subsist only in a body; or because we know of nothing possessing attributes except a body,” those who affirm the attributes reply:

“Yet you yourselves have said that He is living, knowing, and powerful, and that He is not a body. You know of no existing being that is living, knowing, and powerful except a body. You have thus affirmed Him in a manner unlike what you have known; we do likewise.”

They also say to them:

“You have affirmed one who is living, knowing, and powerful, yet without life, knowledge, or power. This is a contradiction that reason necessarily recognizes.”