I ' m not sure why the first position necessitates such a blind acceptance without questioning take on things . I suppose at one level it does in that it recognizes God doesn ' t submit to our definitions of Him , which is what the second position can entail , but this isn ' t necessarily antiintellectual either . The second position presupposes that the first is impossible logically as you stated , but why is that ? Why does God have to conform to some philosophers ' views of what ' s possible and impossible ? The tables could in fact be turned though since rejecting the first view itself brings up some serious philosophical problems as well , such as how that train of thought logically leads to pantheism , even atheism . There ' s a few papers I ' d recommend you give a read on this subject if you ' d like to see this from a different angle than you ' ve perhaps been exposed to thus far . For an academic historical take on anthropomorphism in early Islam there ' s an excellent paper that treats the subject from a philosophical and Biblical stand point by E . LaB . Cherbonnier called The Logic of Biblical Anthropomorphism available here it ' s not written from an Islamic standpoint , the issues he deals with are pretty relevant to this discussion and it makes for a worthwhile read . You can PM me if you don ' t have access to this .