(1) The phrase “deficient in His Essence” appears only in (ع). (2) (B) alone reads: “what he had mentioned.” (3) “And deplored” is omitted from (N) and (M). (A) reads *wa-istahjara* (“and deemed it nonsensical”). (4) In his *al-Arba‘īn fī Usūl al-Dīn* (Forty Questions on the Fundamentals of Religion), p. 159 (Hyderabad ed., 3531), al-Rāzī presented the Mu‘tazilites’ objections to the affirmers of the attributes while discussing the fifteenth issue. He wrote: “…The sixth objection is that Allah Most High declared the Christians unbelievers in His saying: ‘They have certainly disbelieved who say, “Allah is the third of three.”’ There are only two possibilities: either He declared them unbelievers because they affirmed three eternal essences subsisting by themselves, or because they affirmed an essence characterized by mutually distinct attributes. The first is false, because the Christians do not affirm three eternal essences subsisting by themselves. Since they do not hold this, it is impossible that Allah should have declared them unbelievers on that account. Since the first alternative is invalid, the second must be established: namely, that He declared them unbelievers only because they affirmed an essence characterized by mutually distinct attributes. Since He declared the Christians unbelievers for affirming three attributes, whoever affirms the Essence together with the eight attributes has affirmed nine things, and his unbelief is three times greater than that of the Christians. This is the sum of the Mu‘tazilites’ objections concerning the denial of the attributes altogether.” Al-Rāzī subsequently answered the Mu‘tazilites’ objections. Responding to this sixth objection on p. [0–9] 65, he wrote: “The answer to their sixth objection is that Allah Most High declared the Christians unbelievers only because they affirmed three attributes that are, in reality, essences. Do you not see that they held it possible for the *uqnūm* (hypostasis) of the Word to pass from the Essence of Allah into the body of Jesus, peace be upon him? Anything capable of passing independently from one essence to another must itself be independent and self-subsisting. Thus, although they call them attributes, they in fact hold them to be essences. There can be no doubt about the unbelief of anyone who affirms a plurality of independently self-subsisting essences. Why, then, do you say that whoever affirms a plurality of attributes must necessarily be an unbeliever?”