LessonsEternal Divine Attributes: Knowledge, Power, Life and SpeechQuiz

وَلَيْسَ النِّزَاعُ فِي الْعِلْمِ وَالْقُدْرَةِ الَّتِي هِيَ مِنْ جُمْلَةِ الْكَيْفِيَّاتِ وَالْمَلَكَاتِ
The dispute is not about knowledge and capacity understood as created qualities or acquired faculties.

In human beings, knowledge may be analyzed as a mental quality and ability as an acquired disposition. Such contingent forms cannot simply be transferred to God, whose attributes are affirmed as eternal and free of bodily conditions.

The theological disagreement asks how to understand the real truth of divine predicates: as eternal attributes of the divine essence or in terms of the essence and its rational relations without the same ontological distinction.

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The actual issue disputed by the schools

Eternal Divine Attributes: Knowledge, Power, Life and Speech

وَلَيْسَ النِّزَاعُ فِي الْعِلْمِ وَالْقُدْرَةِ الَّتِي هِيَ مِنْ جُمْلَةِ الْكَيْفِيَّاتِ وَالْمَلَكَاتِ
The dispute is not about knowledge and capacity understood as created qualities or acquired faculties.

In human beings, knowledge may be analyzed as a mental quality and ability as an acquired disposition. Such contingent forms cannot simply be transferred to God, whose attributes are affirmed as eternal and free of bodily conditions.

The theological disagreement asks how to understand the real truth of divine predicates: as eternal attributes of the divine essence or in terms of the essence and its rational relations without the same ontological distinction.