And if a philosopher can say:

“He exists; He is the thinker, the object of thought, and intellect; the lover, the beloved, and love; the object of pleasure, the one who experiences pleasure, and pleasure itself. All this is one thing; this attribute is the other attribute, and the attribute is the very entity it qualifies. Affirming these things does not entail corporeality,”

then all the others who affirm the attributes can say this and what is more consonant with reason. No one who denies any attribute conveyed by the Lawgiver can advance a statement and claim that it accords with reason without someone who affirms that attribute being able to advance a statement more consonant with reason.

This is a summary whose details will be explained, Allah willing. It will be shown that whoever affirms what the Messenger affirmed and denies what he denied accords more closely with clear reason, just as he accords more closely with authentic transmitted revelation. Whoever contradicts authentic transmitted revelation also contradicts clear reason and is more fittingly counted among those of whom Allah said:

“And they will say, ‘If only we had been listening or reasoning, we would not be among the companions of the Blaze.’”

[Tabārak: 10].

[The prophets did not call people to the method based on accidents]

If it is said:

Regarding the assertion that the prophets did not call people to establish the existence of the Creator through this method—the method based on accidents, their origination, their necessary presence in bodies, and the principle that whatever necessarily entails something originated is itself originated:

[Those who dispute this statement have two positions.
Those who dispute it have two positions:
The first position]

Those who dispute this statement have two positions.

Those who dispute it have two positions:

The first position

One is to reject this premise.

For it is well known that many who deny the attributes say that this method is the method of Abraham, the intimate friend of Allah, and that he inferred the origination of the stars, the sun, and the moon from their setting; that setting is motion, and motion is change. It therefore followed from