He said: “Know that the philosophers—or the Muslims and the theologians—must admit the possibility of departures from the customary order.” He explained this until he said: “Abū al-Husayn can do no more than claim self-evident knowledge at the outset of the question, and we, in response, can do no more than withhold assent.”

Now, these are three propositions concerning which his opponents have claimed self-evident knowledge, yet he affirms them to establish the possibility of seeing an existent being that is neither within the world nor outside it. How, then, can he reject his opponent’s claim to self-evident knowledge that an existent being outside the world must be either divisible or insignificant, even though this is more evident with regard to its existence?