This statement, however, that souls and angels are living through their own being must not be understood as meaning that they have no creator who gave them being and life. The meaning merely is that the being which God gave them is different from the being he gave to bodies. Bodies need a soul to become living, the soul is itself living. So in material things, also, the sun shines with its own light and not with light acquired. The odor of myrrh is fragrant through itself, not through anything else. The eye sees with its own power, whereas man sees with the eye. The tongue does not speak with another tongue, man speaks with a tongue, and so on. So we say of God, though in a manner a thousand-fold more sublime, that he is living, but not with a life which is distinct from his being; and so of the other attributes, hearing, seeing, and so on, that we find in the Scriptural praises of him. It is necessary to add that as on the one hand we have seen that God's attributes are identical with his being, so it follows on the other that the various attributes, such as wise, seeing, hearing, knowing, and so on, are not different from each other in meaning, though distinct in expression. Otherwise it would make God composite. The reason we employ a number of distinct expressions is in order to remove from God the several opposites of the terms used. Thus when we say God is living we mean to indicate that he is not dead. The attribute wise excludes folly and ignorance; hearing and seeing remove deafness and blindness. The philosopher Aristotle says that it is truer and more appropriate to apply negative attributes to God than positive. Others have said that we must not speak of the Creator in positive terms for there is danger of endowing him with form and resemblance to other things. Speaking of him negatively we imply the positive without risking offence. In the sequel Al Mukammas refutes the views of the dualists, of the Christians and those who maintain that God has form. We cannot afford to linger over these arguments, interesting though they be, and must hurry on to say a word about the sixteenth chapter, which deals with reward and punishment. This no doubt forms part of the second Muʿtazilite division, namely, the "Bab al ʿAdl," or section concerning God's justice.