[Objection]
If it is said:
“This undermines reason’s testimony, since it has testified both to the Messenger’s truthfulness and to the soundness of the reasoning that contradicts his report.”

[Response. First answer]
Response.
First answer

There are two answers to this:

The first is that we hold it impossible for conclusive rational evidence and conclusive transmitted revelation to conflict. Thus, the evidentiary force of reason is not invalidated. We have presented this only by way of a counterargument: whoever gives rational evidence precedence over transmitted revelation must give precedence to the rational evidence that attests to the truth of transmitted revelation. Moreover, if he gives rational evidence precedence, its inconsistency and invalidity necessarily follow; whereas giving evidence from transmitted revelation precedence entails no internal inconsistency in it, even if it leaves him without knowledge of its soundness. What is known to be invalid is more deserving of rejection than that whose validity or invalidity is unknown.

[Second answer]
The second answer:

We say that the rational arguments opposing transmitted revelation are different from the rational evidence by which the Messenger’s truthfulness is known, although the general category of rational arguments encompasses both.

When we invalidate what opposes transmitted revelation, we invalidate only one kind of what is called rational argument. We do not invalidate all rational arguments, nor do we invalidate the rational evidence by which the soundness of transmitted revelation is known. What we have stated establishes the soundness both of transmitted revelation and of the rational evidence through which its soundness is known.

There is no contradiction in this. Rather, the reality is that the rational evidence demonstrating the Messenger’s truthfulness has come into conflict with the reasoning that contradicts his report. We therefore give the former precedence over the latter, just as we give the evidence demonstrating the Messenger’s truthfulness precedence over the invalid arguments that impugn the prophethood of the prophets—even though these, too, are rational arguments.

Indeed, the specious objections of those who advance falsehood and impugn prophethood may be more formidable than many of the rational arguments used to oppose what the prophets report concerning Allah’s names, attributes, and acts, and the return to Him. Thus, if