says: “That what you have described entails nonexistence is known through necessary, innate rational knowledge. But the claim that what I have described entails disintegration rests only on specious arguments constructed from equivocal terms.”

If they appeal to the sound innate dispositions of humankind, these will judge in favour of the affirmer against the denier. For their acceptance of what the affirmer says is known, whereas their acceptance of what the denier says is not known.

If they appeal instead to rational syllogisms, we say: The statement of this al-Rāzī and others like him, cited earlier in his introduction, must be either true or false: “When a person considers the conditions of terrestrial and celestial bodies and reflects upon their attributes, there is a method for doing so. If he wishes to proceed from these to knowledge of Lordship, he must acquire for himself a different innate disposition, a different approach, and a different intellect from the intellect by which he came to know corporeal things.” If this statement is true, then this argument and others like it are invalid—arguments he has built upon denying or affirming the indivisible atom, and upon bodies being characterized