In that case, their assertion would be closer to soundness and yours closer to falsity; thus your position is shown to be invalid on either reckoning. To clarify: for your claim to be accepted you must first establish that the powers of the soul can produce effects of this magnitude. Yet on precisely this point those who oppose you far outnumber those who share with you the notion of natural efficacy, for the bulk of philosophers and naturalists refuse to credit psychic forces in the same way they concede that fire heats, bread satiates, and water quenches. Even were you able to prove some influence for the soul, you would still be unable to demonstrate that its influence extends to these momentous occurrences. After that you would need to rule out the presence of any other causes, and even then the debate over causes and effects would remain. You therefore face formidable obstacles you cannot overcome before you even reach the question of causality—at which stage you and your adversaries among the dialectical theologians, the Muʿtazilites, the Ashʿarites, and their like, would end up in the same predicament.

As for the majority of Muslims, they do not deny the reality of causes and effects, whether in inanimate objects or in living beings, as has already been noted. Rather, they affirm whatever sound proof establishes, whether that proof be scriptural or rational. And although we have demonstrated that the method of the dialectical theologians is, both textually and rationally, nearer to the truth than that of the philosophers, they themselves concede that their method contains shortcomings and defects, rejecting some truths and embracing certain falsehoods.