Title: Establishing Rational Grounds Question: My question here does not relate so much to Islam as to one of your approaches in the presentation of logical arguments. When I asked you about the rational grounds for God's omnipotence [1] (and for the limitlessness of all of His other Saffat), you replied that the rational basis is the lack of any rational basis to the contrary. We cannot "rationally" say that God's powers end at a particular point. I agree with this assessment, but surely this does not establish God's omnipotence. For example, suppose I were to claim that there are 900-foot clowns at the edge of the universe. Someone counters by saying that this is absurd and asks me what the rational grounds are for this statement. My reply is "Well, we have no rational basis to the contrary, therefore these clowns exist." Would any reasonable person consider this compelling? It seems to me that there are no rational grounds for God's limitlessness. Instead, we ascribe to this concept because God's revelation makes it clear. My question is about whether we should reconsider the use of "not having rational grounds to the contrary" in establishing rational grounds for any particular argument. Thank you. Omar Sarwar Singapore Answer: I fully agree with you regarding the absurdity entailed in the argument given in the example. Nevertheless, the limitlessness of God's knowledge, powers, wisdom etc., in my opinion, cannot be compared with a baseless claim like the existence of 900-feet tall clowns at the end of the universe. As I see it, certain attributes are the essence of the very concept of God. In other words, certain attributes are inherent in the concept of God. These inherent attributes include self-sufficient and self-sustaining life, absolute knowledge, all encompassing powers etc. Being inherent to the very concept of God, these attributes do not require a logical basis, except that there should be no logical argument, which proves to the contrary to ascribing these attributes to God. To understand the foregoing argument, a more appropriate example would be the claim of the existence of matter even at the final limits of the physical universe. I would be inclined to agreeing with this claim merely on the grounds that there is no logical basis for holding otherwise and because the 'existence of matter' is inherent to the very concept of 'physical universe' or 'physical existence'. Finally, I do agree with you that the ascription of the referred attributes to God, as a part of Islamic belief in God, is based solely on the introduction of God, as entailed in the Qur'an, not merely on any logical or philosophical grounds. I hope this helps. Regards, Moiz Amjad December 14, 2002 [1] This is a reference to one of the earlier responses to a question titled: " The Grounds for Belief in God's Omnipotence ".