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Our intellects arrived at these three meanings simultaneously — and it was impossible for our languages to express them in a single word, since no word was found in language that encompasses all three meanings;
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and so we were compelled to express them with three words, after qualifying our statement with the explanation that the intellect perceives them intuitively.
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Let no one suppose that the Eternal, blessed and exalted, contains multiple distinct meanings — for all these meanings amount, in their essence, to the single meaning that He is the Maker;
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it is our manner of expression that drove us to formulate this known fact with three words, since we found in established language no word that gathers them together;
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nor was it possible to coin a word for them, since such a coinage would be unknown and would require its own explanation, so we would return again to multiple words in its place.
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If some imaginer imagines that these meanings entail distinction — that is, that one is other than another — I will demonstrate to him the falsity of what he imagines through sound rational inquiry:
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for distinction (al-ghayr) and differentiation (al-taghayyur) obtain only among bodies and accidents; but the Creator of bodies and accidents is exalted above all distinction and differentiation.
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Nor will I be satisfied until I give a fuller explanation. I say: just as our saying 'Maker' adds nothing to His essence but only implies that there is here a thing made,
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so too our saying 'Living, Omnipotent, All-Knowing' — which are explanations of 'Maker,' for none is a Maker except one in whom all these meanings are simultaneously present — adds nothing to His essence, but only implies that there is here a thing made.
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And after contemplating this and mastering it, I returned to the sacred scriptures and found in them, regarding the negation of all distinction from Him: 'There is none beside Him' (Deut. 4:35),
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...and also: 'Is there any whisper of a word heard about Him?' (Job 26:14), and also: 'The Lord shall be one and His name one' (Zech. 14:9).
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Section 5. Then I say: in this matter the Christians erred and believed in distinction within Him, and this led them to make Him three — thereby falling into heresy;
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and I will demonstrate what I have to refute them with from rational argument — in the truly One I seek aid regarding His unity.
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I do not aim in this refutation at their common folk, since their common folk know only the corporeal Trinity — I will not occupy my book with rebutting such a claim, easy as refuting it would be;
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rather, I aim my refutation at their intellectuals, those who claim to hold the Trinity by rational inquiry and subtle understanding.
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They arrived at these three attributes, held fast to them, and said: 'Nothing creates except what is Living and Knowing' — and so they believed His Life and His Knowledge to be things distinct from His essence, making three in their reckoning.
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The first avenue of refutation is that they cannot avoid believing Him either to be a body or not a body — if they believe Him to be a body, they join the common folk of their own community;
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and they would incur every refutation we leveled against those who corporialize Him; and if they do not believe Him to be a body, then their claim that He contains distinction — such that one attribute is not the other — is in truth the claim that He is a body, only expressed in different words;
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for everything that contains distinction is necessarily a body — while we have already established that these meanings are a single attribute, and it is only language that could not gather them in speech as the intellect gathered them in knowledge;
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and at that point they resemble one who says: 'I do not worship fire — I worship the burning, illuminating, rising thing' — which is fire.