The “affirmers” therefore reply to them:

“This is false for several reasons.

First, existents are of two kinds: those capable of possessing attributes of perfection, such as living beings, and those incapable of possessing them, such as inanimate objects. It is well known that what is capable of possessing attributes of perfection is more perfect than what is incapable of doing so. Consequently, if the Lord were incapable of possessing attributes of perfection, He would necessarily lack them, and a being capable of possessing them—such as a blind and deaf animal that presently lacks hearing and sight—would be more perfect than Him. For what is capable of hearing and sight, even while lacking them, is more perfect than what is incapable of possessing them; how much more so, then, one that actually possesses them? According to your position, therefore, He would be stripped of all attributes of perfection, and such attributes would be impossible for Him. You fled from likening Him to living beings, only to liken Him to inanimate objects. You claimed to declare Him free of deficiencies, yet described Him in terms of the greatest deficiency.

The second reason is that this distinction between negation and affirmation, and between privation and possession, is merely terminological. Otherwise, whatever is not alive is called dead, as Allah Most High says:

{Those whom they invoke besides Allah create nothing, while they themselves are created. They are dead, not living, and they do not know when they will be resurrected.}

The third reason is that the very absence of these attributes is a deficiency, even if no positive opposite is posited. We know necessarily that one who is living, knowing, powerful, speaking, hearing, and seeing is more perfect than one who is none of these, and who—like an inanimate object—is described as neither hearing nor deaf. Since affirming these attributes is itself perfection and denying them is itself deficiency, they must be affirmed of Allah Most High, for such perfection is possible and entails no deficiency whatsoever; rather, deficiency lies in its absence.”