and relational attributes between the Creator and the created, whether they are regarded as existent or non-existent. Even if some contingent existent were assumed to be eternal and beginningless—as those who maintain that something in the world is eternal claim—the aggregation of that contingent existent with the Necessary Existent would be an effect of the Necessary Existent. The Necessary Existent is not a part of that aggregation, but one of the things brought together. It is possible for one of the things brought together to be the cause of all the remaining parts, while the aggregation itself constitutes another part. Thus the Necessary Existent, who is one of the things brought together—including the aggregation—is the cause of all the remaining parts, and the aggregation is one of them. Nothing in this therefore makes it impossible for one part of the whole to be the cause of every part of that whole. It is this impossibility that we seek to rule out. Thus the impossibility concerning some contingent existents becomes clear, for the former entails being the cause of itself. A contingent existent that is itself produced and made being its own originator and creating itself is more manifestly impossible than its creating something else after it exists.

For this reason, Allah Most High says:

“Or were they created by nothing, or are they themselves the creators?”
Al-Tūr 35

For it is self-evident to the innate human disposition that they could not have come into being without someone bringing them into being, nor could they have brought themselves into being. It is therefore known that they have an originator who brought them into being.

[The Third Argument]

We do not concede that the Necessary Existent alone is the cause of the aggregate composed of the Necessary Existent and contingent existents. Rather, its cause is all its constituent parts together. This is because