the objects of knowledge into three categories: those known only through reason, those known only through revelation, and those known through either.

Among the things known only through revelation, they included reports concerning what may or may not exist.

Yet it is clear that their argument rules out revelatory evidence being authoritative in this category as well. For when something may or may not exist, and revelatory evidence indicates one of these two possibilities, if we allow that what the revelatory evidence indicates may not be true, then here too it is possible that what is reported is not actually true, and that the Lawgiver did not intend what His words indicate. This does not require us to suppose that there could be a rational proof opposing it. For even if we suppose there is no opposing proof indicating that the import of the revelatory evidence is untrue, or that the Lawgiver did not intend what His words indicate, the absence of such a proof does not entail that what it would establish is false: evidence does not admit of such a reverse inference. Thus, the absence of a rational proof negating the import of the revelatory evidence does not entail that the conclusion of that rational proof is false, if we allow that its conclusion may in fact be true. Just as our lack of knowledge does not entail the absence of evidence, so the absence of evidence does not entail the absence of what it would establish.

Revelation could then no longer be used to establish matters of the Hereafter that lie beyond the scope of reason. This is the utmost religious deviation.

If they seek to defend themselves against this by saying that the Lawgiver cannot intend by His words anything contrary to their apparent meaning unless reason provides an indication of that, they may be told:

Your answer to this is the same as the answer you gave the Mu‘tazilah when they said, “It is not permissible to