The philosophers say:

“If His being described by these attributes confers perfection upon Him, then He attains perfection through something other than Himself and is therefore imperfect in Himself. If they confer imperfection upon Him, then He cannot be described by them.”

The Muʿtazila say:

“If real attributes subsisted in His Essence, He would be dependent upon them while they would be dependent upon Him; the Lord would thus be dependent upon something other than Himself. Moreover, such attributes are accidents, and accidents can subsist only in a body. A body is composite, and whatever is composite is contingent and needy. That is the very essence of imperfection.”

They also say:

“If He decreed the deeds of His servants and then punished them for those deeds, He would be unjust—and injustice is an imperfection.”

Their opponents say:

“If anything occurred in His dominion that He did not will, He would be imperfect.”

The Kullābiyya and those who followed them deny His attributes of action. They say:

“If these attributes subsisted in Him, He would be a locus for originated events. If an originated event conferred perfection upon Him, then He must previously have lacked that perfection, which is an imperfection. If it conferred no perfection upon Him, then He could not be described by it.”

One group among them denies His revealed attributes because, they claim, these necessarily entail composition, which in turn entails need and dependence. They likewise deny His love, because love entails an affinity between the lover and the beloved, and any affinity between the Lord and creation is an imperfection. The same applies to His mercy, because mercy, they argue, is a tenderness within the one who shows mercy; it is a weakness and feebleness of constitution, together with pain felt for the one receiving mercy—and that is an imperfection,