and forever—is impossible according to the clearest judgments (1) of reason; indeed, even at the very outset (2) of rational thought, once the matter has been fully conceived.

If they say:

“Necessary knowledge cannot be unanimously denied by a body of rational people who could not have colluded upon a lie.”

They are told:

Indeed, no body of rational people has ever agreed upon this doctrine without prior collusion. Rather, the overwhelming majority of rational people, past and present, reject it in the strongest terms. It is maintained only by a single group, whose members have taken it from one another (3), through mutual agreement (* and transmission from one to another. Where such agreement exists, people may agree *) (4) either to tell a deliberate lie or upon matters that are unclear—such as false doctrines whose falsity is necessarily known, yet which a group has inherited, receiving them one from another. This is unlike propositions that people affirm independently (5), without prior agreement: none of those can be known by immediate reason to be false. This is why the general body of doctrines held by disbelievers and adherents of religious innovation—including polytheists, Christians, Rāfidis, Jahmis, and others—contains claims whose falsity is known by necessity of reason. They were nevertheless maintained by a group whose members received them from one another.

Another reason is that it may be said:

If this were true, the occurrence of temporal events in the world would be altogether impossible, and those events would have no originator whatsoever. The falsity of this is among the most evident things known by necessity of reason. For if a cause is complete and eternal, its effect coexists with it, and whatever—