this.

But if he says, “Yes,” he is told: Why did you understand from those names that they point to the very Lord Himself, yet failed to understand that they also point to the meanings of mercy and knowledge contained in them, when the two kinds of indication are exactly the same?

He will inevitably answer: “Indeed; for affirming attributes is impossible according to reason, because it would entail composition or contingency, whereas the Essence is exempt from that.”

At that point he is addressed with the same argument that applies to the second group, as we shall explain—those who admit that some of the meaning of these names and attributes is understood while other parts are not.

He is therefore asked: What distinction do you make between what you have affirmed and what you have denied—or about which you have remained silent, neither affirming nor denying? Any difference must be either on the basis of revelation, in that one of the two texts provides a definitive or apparent proof unlike the other, or on the basis of reason, in that one of the two meanings may or must be affirmed while the other may not. Yet in most cases both of these grounds are invalid.

As for the first: the Quran’s evidence that He is the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful, the Most Loving, the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing, the Exalted, the Magnificent is exactly like its evidence that He is All-Knowing and All-Powerful; there is no difference between them from the standpoint of the text. Likewise, His mention of His mercy, love, and transcendence is just like His mention of His will and volition.

As for the second: it is said to the one who affirms one thing and denies another, “Why, for example, did you deny the reality of His mercy and His love, reducing them to His will?”

If he says, “Because the meaning we understand from mercy in our case is tenderness, which is impossible for Allah,” he is told, “And the meaning we understand from will in our case is inclination, which is likewise impossible for Allah.”

If he then says, “His will is not of the same species as the will of His creation,” he is told, “His mercy is not of the same species as the mercy of His creation, and so too His love.”

And if he says—and this is in fact his real stance—“I did not establish will and the like through revelation; rather, I affirmed knowledge, power, and will by reason, and likewise His hearing, sight, and speech on one of—"