Llull imagined religious unity achievable through rational proof rather than authority

Evidence

“Think, gentlemen,” the wise man said to his companions, “of the harm that comes from men not belonging to a single sect, and of the good that would come from everyone being beneath one faith and one religion. This being the case, do you not think it would be a good idea for us to sit beneath these trees, beside this lovely fountain, and discuss what we believe, according to what the flowers and conditions of these trees signify? And since we cannot agree by means of authorities, let us try to come to some agreement by means of demonstrative and necessary reasons [raons necessàries].” — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1311

Categorization

• DEFINE: The reasoning for this follows in the next paragraph: how one-god monotheism implies one true religion discoverable by ‘necessary reasons’.
• XREF: Grounding the vault’s Islam-West opposition genealogy in an earlier 13th-century ironic inversion: a Mediterranean Christian author staging religious disputation as rational reconciliation — useful contrast to Crusade-era polemic.