realities we know.

Accordingly, whatever else He has named and described Himself with must be treated exactly as His very Essence itself, exalted and sanctified.

The crux of the discussion is this: most of those who deny or affirm any point attested by the Book and the Sunnah do so on the basis of two considerations. They affirm something because, in their view, the positive cause is present and no impediment exists; they negate something because the impediment is present or the positive cause is absent; or they suspend judgment when, to their minds, neither a cause nor an impediment is evident. We therefore show such a person that the very same positive cause that stands behind what he has denied is in fact operative—just as it is operative in what he has affirmed—either in every respect or in at least one respect that makes affirmation obligatory.

If that positive cause is sound in the case he accepts, it is equally sound in the case he rejects; if not, dismissing it there entails dismissing it here as well. As for the impediment, we demonstrate that the obstacle he imagines for what he negates is of the same kind as the obstacle he imagines for what he affirms. Should that alleged impossibility attend both suppositions, he cannot escape its dilemma by affirming one attribute and denying the other: if the objection were valid, he would have to deny them both; if invalid, he would have no grounds to deny either. He is therefore obliged to treat the two matters alike in affirmation and negation. Since negation is not an option, affirmation becomes mandatory.

This is the heart of the binding argument against anyone who affirms anything at all—and there is no one who does not in fact affirm something, or is not required to affirm it. Hence, at a general level, you can see that the so-called entailments which are said to necessitate negation are merely baseless imaginings, even if their falsity is not spelled out in detail. When we do descend to particulars, however, the futility of the objection and the presence of the requisite cause are both laid bare, as we have shown more than once.

Now if someone says—having already affirmed those attributes which, in us, are accidental states such as life, knowledge, and power, yet refusing to affirm those which, in us, are bodily parts like hand or foot—“These are parts and members that entail composition and corporeality,”