through rational inquiry; by contrast, those who affirm the divine attributes say that the impossibility of this is self-evident. They may also say that the Creator’s being above His creation is known through the innate disposition with which people were created, and that this is among the strongest forms of self-evident knowledge. For knowledge innate to human nature is more firmly established than knowledge whose acceptance becomes inescapable only after its two terms have been conceived, or after some reflection. The term “self-evident” may refer to knowledge that necessarily adheres to a created being’s mind and from which he cannot disengage, or to knowledge that a person acquires without effort or choice.

The point is that no rational person has claimed that the existence of a being neither inside nor outside the world is self-evident. The same applies to the other implications of this position, such as His being neither a body nor spatially confined, and similar claims. No rational person has said that these negations are self-evident. Rather, what is generally claimed is that they belong to inferential knowledge. Inferential knowledge must ultimately rest on self-evident premises; otherwise, “circular dependence” or an “infinite regress” would follow in something that has a beginning in time. The invalidity of both is self-evident and agreed upon by rational people.

Accordingly, for every self-evident premise used to establish possibility or actual existence—for example, the existence of a being neither inside nor outside the world—the negation of that conclusion is more compelling to reason than the premise itself. Moreover, the certainty that this negation is self-evident is stronger than the certainty that the premise of the opposing argument is self-evident.