Adhering to the expressions of the Salaf regarding the attributes and avoiding newly coined terms
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The questioner:
He wanted to address your case, which involves a psychological aspect. May you have a long life. It concerns meanings. It is a matter of semantic nuances.
The Shaykh:
Regarding this question, the rule is: do not go beyond the expressions of the Salaf. Do not formulate new phrases or coin new terms, even if a modern scholar or another has said them. Do not accept this. The expressions of the Salaf are the scholarly expressions of the Salaf.
They are ahead of us in this field, and as far as I know, they did not mention these things. So we limit ourselves to the expressions of the Salaf: attributes of essence and attributes of action. This is what they mentioned. Attributes of essence are those that are inseparable from the Essence, such as life, knowledge, power, and will. Attributes of action are things like creation, provision, descent, and rising above the Throne. This is a major point of agreement. May Allah be exalted if He wills (Glorified and Exalted is He). Yes.
These are elaborations and convoluted details that are not found in the speech of the Salaf. So beware of mentioning them, even if the one saying them is a mujtahid (a scholar qualified to derive rulings) and has a high rank in knowledge. But this is a dangerous field, a field where the scope of ideas is vast. It is not fitting for a person to acquire something from his own mind, even if he claims to want to clarify, to define, or to specify. How many people have erred with these convoluted details and these innovations that the Salaf did not encounter and did not speak of.
He wanted to address your case, which involves a psychological aspect. May you have a long life. It concerns meanings. It is a matter of semantic nuances.
The Shaykh:
Regarding this question, the rule is: do not go beyond the expressions of the Salaf. Do not formulate new phrases or coin new terms, even if a modern scholar or another has said them. Do not accept this. The expressions of the Salaf are the scholarly expressions of the Salaf.
They are ahead of us in this field, and as far as I know, they did not mention these things. So we limit ourselves to the expressions of the Salaf: attributes of essence and attributes of action. This is what they mentioned. Attributes of essence are those that are inseparable from the Essence, such as life, knowledge, power, and will. Attributes of action are things like creation, provision, descent, and rising above the Throne. This is a major point of agreement. May Allah be exalted if He wills (Glorified and Exalted is He). Yes.
These are elaborations and convoluted details that are not found in the speech of the Salaf. So beware of mentioning them, even if the one saying them is a mujtahid (a scholar qualified to derive rulings) and has a high rank in knowledge. But this is a dangerous field, a field where the scope of ideas is vast. It is not fitting for a person to acquire something from his own mind, even if he claims to want to clarify, to define, or to specify. How many people have erred with these convoluted details and these innovations that the Salaf did not encounter and did not speak of.
Source
شرح العقيدة الواسطية [ صالح الفوزان ] [ الشرح القديم ]، الإيمان بما وصف الله به نفسه في كتابه — islamhouse.com (1:03:00)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.