Furthermore, either worshipping Him alone, without any partner, brings people greater perfection in knowledge and purpose, or associating partners with Him does. The latter is known to be false. Their innate nature must therefore contain something that impels them to affirm His oneness.

Furthermore, either Islam and the other religions are equal, or Islam is inferior, or it is superior.

The first two alternatives are false, by the consensus of the Muslims and on numerous evidential grounds. Innate nature must therefore contain something that inclines it toward the better of the two options. Islam and all other religious traditions cannot stand in the same relation to innate nature, whether in terms of capacity or receptivity.

Since innate nature must contain a factor favoring the upright monotheistic faith—whose foundation is knowing the Maker, loving Him, and devoting religion sincerely to Him—either what this nature entails can arise only through an external cause, such as someone who teaches a person and calls him to faith, or it can arise without this external cause.

If the former is true, what innate nature entails must always depend on an external interlocutor and can never arise without one.

The same argument would then apply to how what innate nature entails arises in that external interlocutor. This would require an infinite regress of interlocutors: infinitely many who address others and are themselves also addressed. This is an infinite regress of agents, which is impossible.

If, however, what innate nature entails arises in any of these interlocutors without an external interlocutor, this demonstrates that innate nature can bring it about. Thus this supposition is invalid:

namely, that