Page 27 - New English Book L

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This reasoning would lead us to conclude that
each act of God displays a divine emanation as His
manifestation and particular attribute, but it is not His
Essence or Being. God is Creator, because He created in
the beginning of time, and always creates. God spoke in
the beginning of time just as He speaks in His own way
always. However, as His creation is not eternal or a divine
person, so His Word cannot be considered eternal and a
divine Person. The Christians proceed further, and make
the Creator a divine father and His Word a divine son;
and also, because He breathed life into His creatures, He
is surnamed a divine Spirit, forgetting that logically He
could not be father before creation, nor “son” before He
spoke, and neither “Holy Ghost” before He gave life. I
can conceive the attributes of God through His works at
manifestations a posteriori, but of his eternal and a prior
attributes, I no conception whatever, nor do I imagine any
human intelligence to be able to comprehend the nature of
an eternal attribute and its relationship to the essence of
God. In fact, God has not revealed to us the nature of His
Being in the Holy Scriptures nor in the human intellect.

The attributes of God are not to be considered as distinct
and separate divine entities or personalities, otherwise we
shall have, not one trinity of persons in the Godhead, but
several dozen of trinities. An attribute until it actually
emanates from its subject has no existence. We cannot
qualify the subject by a particular attribute before that
attribute has actually proceeded from it and is seen. Hence
we say “God is Good’ when we enjoy His good and kind
action; but we cannot describe Him -properly speaking-
as “God is Goodness,” because goodness is not God, but
His action and work. It is for this reason that the Qur-án
always attributes to Allah the adjectival appellations, such
as the Wise, the Knowing, the Merciful, but never with
such descriptions as “God is love, knowledge, word,” and