sound rational propositions, challenging them does not entail challenging revelation. How much more so, then, with supposedly rational propositions that contain much error and are the subject of profound disagreement.

Indeed, the further people are removed from the revealed laws, the greater the confusion in their rational doctrines. The philosophers, for example, have almost countless disagreements in their rational disciplines—even in logic, astronomy, and natural philosophy.

Their discussion of divine matters is scant, their knowledge of them meagre, and the questions they address few. Yet even these matters are, for them, like lean camel meat atop a rugged mountain: neither is the mountain easy to climb, nor is the meat fat enough to be worth carrying away.

Their leading authorities acknowledge that they have no means of attaining certainty in these matters; they speak only of what seems more likely and more fitting. Even so, their disagreements concerning divine matters exceed those found within any single innovating sect among the religious communities.

Since the category of what these people call rational propositions contains much error, as everyone agrees and as is self-evident, not everything called rational can be accepted, let alone used to oppose revelation. Were everything called rational accepted in its entirety, one would have to affirm any number of mutually contradictory propositions.

Those who deny the existence of the atom—the indivisible substance—and those who affirm it each say, “This is known through reason.”

Likewise, those who maintain that some accidents persist, as opposed to those who maintain that they perish; those who maintain that bodies are alike, as opposed to those who maintain that they differ; and those who maintain