He replied—may Allah be pleased with him:

Praise be to Allah.

The answer to the question rests upon two premises.

The first is to know that perfection is established for Allah. Indeed, He possesses the utmost degree of perfection possible: there is no perfection entirely free of deficiency that is not established for the Lord Most High and that He does not deserve by virtue of His sacred Essence. Affirming this necessarily entails negating its opposite. Thus, affirming life entails negating death; affirming knowledge entails negating ignorance; and affirming power entails negating incapacity. This perfection is established for Him by rational proofs and certain demonstrations, while revelation also indicates it.

The Quran indicates matters in two ways.

The first is Allah’s truthful report. Whatever Allah and His Messenger report is true, exactly as Allah has reported it.

The second is the Quran’s indication through setting forth analogies and explaining the rational proofs that establish the matter in question. This is a scriptural and rational indication: it is [scriptural] because revelation points to it and directs people to it, and [rational] because its soundness can be known through reason.

It cannot be said that it is known solely through the report itself.

When Allah reports something and also demonstrates it through rational indications, it is thereby established by His report,