Were it not for the prophets, these men would have been more rational than others. But the prophets brought the truth, remnants of which remain among the nations, even though they disbelieve in some of it. Even the Arab polytheists retained remnants of Abraham’s religion and were therefore better than the polytheistic philosophers who agree with Aristotle and his like on their fundamental principles.

The fifth point:

If the aim of their demonstrative syllogism is knowledge of contingent beings, none of these necessarily remains in the same state from eternity past to eternity future. Rather, they are susceptible to change and transformation. Even when an attribute is assumed to be inseparable from its subject, the subject itself does not necessarily endure. Knowledge of it is therefore not knowledge of a necessarily existent being.

They have no sound proof that anything in the world has existed without a beginning, as has been explained at length elsewhere. At most, their arguments entail the perpetual existence of agency, matter and duration as kinds. This is possible through an endless succession of individual instances of those kinds, while affirming that every effect comes into being and is preceded by nonexistence, as sound reason and authentic revelation require. For sound reason judges it impossible for a particular effect to coexist with its agent from eternity past to eternity future, whatever its agent is assumed to be—especially if the agent acts by choice, as established by conclusive proofs, not those cited by men deficient in their knowledge of the foundations of knowledge and religion, such as al-Rāzī and his like. This has been explained at length elsewhere.

As for their claim that an effect coexists with its cause, if by “cause” they mean that which brings the effect into existence, this is false according to sound reason. Hence, this is acknowledged by all sound natural dispositions that