of particular existing beings; it is merely knowledge of abstract matters in the mind that have no existence outside it. Thus, they attained none of the perfections in knowledge and action that would secure their bliss in the Hereafter or their deliverance from the Fire. Many Jews and Christians were closer to bliss and deliverance than they were, as has been explained at length elsewhere.

The point here is that people agree that the mind’s judgments—that every independently existing being can be pointed to, that two beings cannot exist without one being either separate from the other or co-located with it, and indeed that the Creator of the world is above the world—are not the result of concerted agreement among people or of their accepting these judgments from one another, as is the deniers’ claim:

“It is possible for a being to exist neither inside the world nor outside it.”

Rather, these are matters people acknowledge through their innate nature and recognize through the self-evident judgments of their minds and the inescapable convictions of their hearts.

Those who challenge these judgments concede this, but claim that people’s innate nature has erred in making this judgment, and that it is an invalid judgment of the estimative faculty and imagination.

Since they acknowledge that people have affirmed this without prior concerted agreement, it cannot be said that those people have lied about their innate nature. Those who affirm this are many, many, many times more numerous than the transmitters of mass-transmitted reports; indeed, they constitute the vast majority of humankind. Thus, when they say:

“This is something we find within our hearts and our innate nature,”

they must be believed concerning it.

Accordingly, these self-evident propositions cannot be invalidated by propositions established through theoretical reasoning,