Abū Ya‘lā, and Abū al-Ma‘ālī in his earlier position (1), are those against whom the negators’ rebuttal is directed (2).

As for those who deny both the attributes and the states altogether, such as Abū ‘Alī and other Mu‘tazilites, they acknowledge the applicability of the names and predications. They say:

“We say that He is Living, Knowing, and Powerful; He is described and predicated as such, and we call Him by these names.”

If they say to some proponents of the attributes:

“You agree that He is Creator and Just even though no act of creation or justice subsists in His being. The same therefore applies to His being Living, Knowing, and Powerful.”

The reply is:

“The fact that these people agree with you does not prove your position sound. The early generations, the leading scholars, and the majority of those who affirm the attributes disagree with all of you. They maintain that His actions—glorified and exalted is He—subsist in His being.

“Moreover, these names indicate creation and provision, just as ‘Speaker’ and ‘One who wills’ indicate speech and will. Yet these negators held that ‘Speaker,’ ‘One who wills,’ ‘Creator,’ and ‘Just’ indicate meanings separate from Him, while holding that ‘Living,’ ‘Knowing,’ and ‘Powerful’ indicate no meanings at all—neither subsisting in Him nor separate from Him. They also held that everything by which the Lord has described Himself—His speech, will, love, hatred, pleasure, and wrath—consists merely of created things separate from Him. They thus described Him by what is separate from Him, thereby contradicting the clear dictates of reason, revelation, and language.”