sound, he does not believe in him. Thus, genuine faith in the Messenger—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—is impossible under this condition.

[The third argument]

If the Messenger’s truthfulness can be known without those methods of reasoning, then knowledge of the revealed teachings does not depend on them. Consequently, if they oppose revelation, the opposing argument is extraneous to it, just like an objection raised by someone who rejects the Messenger and argues that he is lying.

There is no doubt that this amounts to opposing the Messenger concerning what he has brought, just as those who reject the messengers oppose them. Such a person must therefore be answered as one answers other unbelieving heretics who attack what the Messenger has brought, or some part of it—not as one answers believers in the Messenger who acknowledge that he speaks nothing but the truth about Allah.

[The fourth argument]

We do not concede the validity of any of those methods such that it could constitute an argument fit to oppose any evidence—whether conclusive or probabilistic, rational or otherwise—let alone the words of the one protected from error, who speaks only the truth. The invalidity of those rational arguments that deny the attributes and actions, or some of them, has been explained in detail elsewhere.

[The fifth argument]

It may be said: There is no doubt that the scriptural texts affirm attributes and actions for Allah Most High, but they neither affirm nor deny that He is a body. Those who deny these attributes and actions do so only on the grounds that affirming them entails that the one possessing them is a body, and that reason rules out His being a body. Their arguments for denying that He is a body are either the argument from contingency or the argument from temporal origination; they have nothing beyond these two.