And it is evident that, for a person, revelation remaining intact is better than both reason and revelation being invalidated.

For the person who says:

“Reason is the foundation of revelation; through it, revelation’s validity is known. If we gave revelation precedence over reason, we would thereby impugn the foundation of revelation,”

is told: Calling reason its foundation does not mean that revelation’s actual truth depends upon reason. Rather, our knowledge of revelation depends upon reason, because reason provides us with proof of revelation’s validity.

It is evident that a proof entails the validity of what it establishes. Thus, if what it establishes is assumed to be invalid, the proof must also be invalid. If, in a supposed conflict, reason were deemed stronger and revelation weaker, such that revelation’s account did not correspond to the reality it describes, revelation would necessarily be false. The reasoning that established its validity would then also be invalid, because a proof entails what it establishes. If the necessary conclusion is false, the proof that entails it must certainly be invalid.

Hence, a sound proof cannot establish something false. Wherever the conclusion is false, the proof offered for it can only be invalid.

If, however, revelation is given precedence, the person who gives it precedence has secured revelation. Even if the rational proof were also assumed to be invalid, this would amount, at most, to his having believed in revelation without a rational proof. This is something from which a person benefits, unlike someone left with neither reason nor revelation, who has lost both this world and the Hereafter.

How much more so, then, when revelation cannot contradict the reasoning that entails its validity? It only contradicts something else, which is not the proof of its validity and, indeed, is not sound in reality.