the existence of secondary causes while at the same time rejecting any purposive explanation will also say:

“We know only that He creates this phenomenon when that one occurs, not by means of it. Therefore, in our view, the pairing of a miracle with confirmation of the messenger’s truthfulness belongs to this very category. Yet the difficulty remains that such knowledge comes only through habitual experience, and here no customary precedent exists. Inevitably they revert to their innate disposition, conceding that the matter is grasped by sheer necessity—even though that admission contradicts their flawed principle—and they illustrate it with the example of a king who departs from his normal practice in order to endorse his envoy.

“But it may be answered: The king’s action is motivated by a goal; one can plausibly say that he rose in order to confirm his messenger. You, however, maintain that Allah does nothing for the sake of anything else, so the analogy collapses. Hence they wobble at this point: at times they declare, ‘Miracles are proof of veracity, lest the matter lead to declaring the Lord powerless; for there is no evidence of truthfulness except the creation of incapacity. If a miracle were not such evidence, it would follow that the Lord is unable to verify a truthful messenger.’ This is the line taken by al-Ashʿarī in most of his works—one of the two positions attributed to him—and it was adopted by Qadi Abu Bakr and Abu Ishaq.