or is under suspicion because of enmity or some other cause, even though this does not impugn his other testimony. Thus, if the testimony of someone who vouches for another’s uprightness conflicts with that of the person he vouched for, and the former’s testimony is rejected because he is a party to the dispute or is under suspicion, this does not impugn the other person’s testimony or uprightness. Likewise, if revelation contradicts reason in certain disputed matters and attributes error and mistake to it in those matters, this does not impugn everything reason knows, nor its testimony that revelation is truthful and its truthfulness confirmed.

If the person whose uprightness has been attested to says, “The person who attested to my uprightness lied in this particular testimony,” this, too, is not analogous to a conflict between reason and revelation. Scriptural proofs do not indicate that rational thinkers who entertained doubts that led them to oppose revelation deliberately lied in doing so.

Even granting that a particular individual or group may deliberately lie, the opposing proofs as a class cannot be described as deliberately lying.

Moreover, if a witness explicitly accuses those who vouched for him of lying, his accusation that someone who attested to his uprightness lied in a particular matter does not entail impugning that person’s attestation to his uprightness. For he says: “He was upright when he vouched for me; then he became sinful and began lying thereafter.” There is no doubt that if upright people attest to someone’s uprightness, and something subsequently occurs that renders them sinful, this does not impugn their earlier attestation, just as it does not impugn their other testimony.