We have treated at length, elsewhere, the various paths people have employed to establish the existence of the Maker. There we demonstrated how many such paths there are, and that the Qur’an offers the most perfect of them. We also examined the three well-known opinions: that acknowledgment of the Maker is innate and self-evident; that it is purely theoretical and reached by inference; and that it is sometimes innate and sometimes inferential. In addition, we listed a number of preliminary propositions that many cite, clarifying that these are not required for the basic proof itself. They become necessary only for the person in whom a particular doubt has arisen and must be removed. Hence the need for such preliminaries is incidental, varying with people’s circumstances; it is not incumbent upon everyone who knows, or reasons to, the existence of the Maker. They are ancillary to the road of knowledge, not essential to it.

The same applies to refuting circular causation, infinite regress, and the like. In this domain paths have multiplied. Some—many practitioners of dialectical theology and speculative reason—adopt a method for affirming the Maker and claim that He cannot be known except through it. That method may be sound, whether long or short, or it may be unsound. Others declare that every theoretical argument and inferential route proposed in this field is sheer innovation and misguidance, neither needed nor beneficial.

Upon closer examination, the proofs advanced fall into two main classes: valid and invalid. The valid itself is of two sorts: one entailing an unnecessary prolixity from which not everyone benefits, and the invalid, which is blameworthy in every respect.

Even prolixity offered on the pretext of need—when the matter could be made simpler—is likewise censurable.