exists and is neither within the world nor outside it, even though conception and imagination fall short of apprehending such a being?”

The reply to him is:

At most, this means that they have affirmed something whose true reality they do not know, because scriptural evidence establishes it. There is nothing objectionable in this, just as they affirm what He has revealed concerning Paradise and Hell and what they contain, and the angels and their attributes, without knowing the true reality of these things. They are therefore even further from knowing the true reality of the Creator. Affirming something that is neither within the world nor outside it, however, is impossible according to the self-evident judgments of our innate nature. The distinction between not knowing something and knowing its nonexistence is clear. How can affirming something that is known in general, but whose true reality is not known in detail, compare with affirming something whose nonexistence is self-evident?! Indeed, even if its nonexistence were known through reasoning, affirming it would be impermissible. How much more so when its nonexistence is self-evident, no revealed report affirms its existence, and no affirmation of it has been transmitted from any of the early generations or the leading scholars? As for what they affirm, its nonexistence is not known either intuitively or through reasoning, as the rational thinkers of the various groups agree.

Al-Rāzī is among the most emphatic proponents of this principle. In several places in his works, such as al-Muhassal, his Quranic commentary, and others, he explicitly states that it is impermissible to deny attributes whose existence is not known, and that the literalists among his followers deny whatever is not supported by