(د)
through reason, according to the discerning scholars. Indeed, love, pleasure, and anger can likewise be established through reason. His being above created things and separate from them is also known through reason, as the leading scholars have established on this basis, including Ahmad ibn Hanbal and others, as well as ‘Abd al-Ālī al-Makkī and ‘Abd Allāh ibn Sa‘īd ibn Kullāb.

Indeed, the possibility of seeing Him can likewise be established through reason. Some have established it on the grounds that anything that exists can be seen; others have established it on the grounds that anything self-subsisting can be seen. The latter approach is sounder than the former. It may also be possible to establish the possibility of seeing Him by an approach other than these two, through a division between affirmation and negation, as when one says: seeing depends only on factors that exist, and whatever depends only on factors that exist is more properly applicable to the necessary, eternal Being than to a contingent being brought into existence.

These matters are discussed at length elsewhere. The point here is that one of the approaches followed in this matter by the leading scholars and the Sunni thinkers who follow them is that, if He did not possess one of two opposing attributes, He would necessarily possess the other. Thus, if He were not described as possessing life, He would be described as possessing death; and if He were not described