the two approaches, for the very occurrence of the act points to power, precision points to knowledge, and specification points to will. He was therefore told: The reply comes in three parts.

First: bestowing favors, doing good, and removing harm likewise point to mercy just as specification points to will. Likewise, bringing someone near, drawing him close, and those kinds of specification that proceed only from one who loves point to love; or, at the very least, any act of specification points to will, whereas specification through beneficence is a particular kind of specification, and specification through nearness and election is a particular kind of drawing near. Whatever method you followed to establish will must be followed in the same way here.

Second, it is said to him: Grant that reason does not point to this; it can no more negate it than it can negate will. Revelation, however, is a proof complete in itself—in fact, in these straits the heart finds greater calm in it and its indication is more perfect. So why did you deny what revelation affirms, or at least withhold judgment, and then reduce all of these attributes to mere will when the texts make no such distinction? Whatever argument you advance will be met with an equivalent one that establishes will as something over and above the act itself.

Third, it is said to him: If the Jahmite tells you that will means nothing but the absence of coercion, or the act itself together with the command to perform it, and then claims that affirming a will entails an impossibility—whether you say it is eternal or originated—the Muʿtazilites themselves become confused. They will not affirm an eternal will, because in their view no eternal attribute can subsist with God, nor will they affirm a newly occurring attribute for Him, because (according to most of them) that would entail temporal events occurring within His being—yet their position remains self-contradictory.