General Beliefs
By Ayatullah Jafar Sobhani

(Continued)
Attributes of Divine Activity
Now that we have dealt with the principal themes related to the attributes of the Essence, it is appropriate to turn our attention to some of the attributes of Divine Activity. Here we shall consider the following three attributes: speech (takallum), veracity (sidq) and wisdom (hikma).

Speech
The Qur'an has described God as one who 'speaks': And God spoke directly with Moses. (Sura al-Nisa, IV: 164)

And again:
And it was not vouchsafed to any mortal that God should speak to him unless [it be] by revelation or from behind a veil, or [that] He sendeth a Messenger...
(Sura al-Shura, XLII:gl)
There is thus no doubt that speech is one of the attributes of God. There is, however, debate over the question of the ultimate nature of this attribute: is it an attribute of the Essence of God or of His Activity? It is clear, to begin with, that speech in the form in which it appears in man, cannot conceivably apply to God.

Since the attribute of speech is given in the Qur'an, we ought to refer to the Scripture itself in order to understand the reality of this attribute.

As we have seen in the verse cited above, the Qur'an establishes the fact that God speaks to His slaves according to three modes of self-disclosure. It is impossible for the speech of God to reach man except by the following three modes: (a) 'unless [it be] by revelation'-in other words, by divine inspiration; (b)'or from behind a veil-in other words, that man can hear God's speech, but cannot see Him (God's speech to Moses took this form); (c) 'or [that] He sendeth a Messenger'-in other words, an angel is sent by God to man to convey the inspiration.

In this verse, the speech of God has been explained as having been brought into being by God, either directly without intermediary, or indirectly through the intermediary of an angel. According to the first mode-divine inspiration-God sometimes casts His words directly into the heart of the Prophet, and sometimes He causes His words to enter the heart after having first been heard by the ear.

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