This is a matter that we ourselves—along with many others—have witnessed time and again; our direct sensory knowledge of it, by both sight and hearing, leaves no room for doubt. What concerns us here, however, is to show that they deny these things without any knowledge, even though the onus of proof rests on the negator no less than on the affirm­ er. In claiming that these mighty signs spring merely from psychic forces they have nothing but bare surmise and a supposed possibility—
“ They follow nothing but conjecture; indeed, they do nothing but guess.” (Q 10:36)

Moreover, they possess no evidence at all that souls can effect such marvels; they rely only on a remote analogy that proves nothing of the sort. This is the first response: you have no proof that these phenomena proceed from psychic powers.

The second response is that many of these very manifestations are ones you yourselves admit cannot possibly be produced by the human soul, as has already been noted. Your claim, then, that the wonders acknowledged by Muslims, Jews, and Christians are effects of psychic forces is invalid. For the aggregate of what they adduce scarcely departs from ordinary, familiar occurrences—save for cosmic events such as the coming of rain, the recovery of the sick, earthquakes, subsidence, the diverting of floods and plagues, or the return of wild beasts and birds. Yet even these belong to categories whose like is brought about by customary causes: rain descends through multiple natural factors, a patient’s recovery takes place by various means, and subsidence or destruction likewise occurs through known causes, just as other instances of the same kind do. And this