opposes them consists of specious arguments and imagined notions, founded on ambiguous meanings and imprecise expressions. Whenever clarification is sought and explanations are given, it becomes clear that these objections are sophistical arguments, not rational proofs.

This is further clarified by:

[The Ninth Argument]

It may be stated as follows:

The claim that a person should give precedence to his own rational understanding over the prophetic texts admits of no consistent standard. For the speculative theologians and philosophers who delve into and dispute what they call rational matters each claim to know, through self-evident reason or rational inquiry, something whose opposite another claims to know through those same means.

This is well known in general. The Muʿtazila and their followers among the Shia claim that their foundational doctrine—which entails denying the divine attributes and rejecting divine decree, and which they call “divine oneness and justice”—is established by conclusive rational evidence. Their opponents, who affirm the divine attributes, claim that the opposite is established by conclusive rational evidence.

Indeed, both groups and others like them say that pure speculative theology concerns what can be known through reason alone, without recourse to revelation, such as the questions of seeing Allah, divine speech, and the creation of actions. These are the matters they regard as certain, and they deem those who disagree concerning them sinful.

Both those who deny and those who affirm include people whose intelligence, reason, and knowledge distinguish them from many others. Yet one says, “Clear reason establishes negation,” while the other says, “Clear reason establishes affirmation.”