5. Ali ibn Ibrahim reported from his father, from Abbas ibn Amr al-Fuqaymi, from Hisham ibn al-Hakam, regarding the narration of the heretic who came to Abu Abdillah al-Sadiq . Among the statements of the Imam was:

"Your claim (of polytheism) does not exclude the possibility that the two (Gods) are either both eternal and powerful or limited, or that one of them is powerful while the other is limited. If they are both powerful, then why doesn’t one of them repel the other and take sole control? And if you claim that one of them is powerful and the other is limited, it is established that there is only one, as we would say the manifest incapacity in the second.

If you say that there are two, they cannot be devoid of being either in complete agreement or completely divergent in every aspect. When we observe that creation is organized, the celestial bodies are in motion, and the management is unified, as well as the alternation of night and day, the sun and the moon, it indicates the correctness of the matter and the unity of management.

You must admit that if you claim there are two, there must be a gap between them until they become two, and thus the gap becomes a third entity alongside them. This implies that you are asserting three. If you claim three, then what you said about the two must apply until there is a gap between them, making them five. Then the count will continue indefinitely into what has no limit in multiplicity."

Hisham said: "Then the heretic asked, 'What is the proof of this?' Abu Abdullah said: 'The existence of actions indicates that there is a Creator who made them. Do you not see that when you look at a constructed building, you know it has a builder, even if you have not seen the builder or witnessed him?'

The heretic then asked, 'What is it?' Abu Abdullah replied: 'It is something contrary to other things; refer my statement to the affirmation of a meaning, and that it is something in the reality of existence, but it is neither a body nor a form, nor is it tangible or measurable. It cannot be perceived by the five senses; it cannot be grasped by imagination, nor can it be diminished by time, nor altered by the ages.'"