such that they would need to rule it out. Likewise, it does not occur to them that two things could exist, each brought about by the other. Rather, they know that a thing cannot bring itself about; how, then, could it bring about its own agent?

The statement that, if each were the agent producing the other, exerted causal influence upon the other, or were the cause of the other, each would precede the other, is correct.

As for the objector’s statement:

“If precedence means the precedence of a cause over its effect, then the consequent is identical to the antecedent; if something else is intended, it is not conceded.”

There are two replies to this. First: what is intended is the precedence that people naturally understand when an agent is said to precede what it produces: namely, that it precedes it in time or in posited time. This is the view of most rational people.

Indeed, they may say that this is self-evident: the agent precedes what it produces, and it is impossible for the two to be coeval in existence.

This is among the arguments used to establish that everything other than Allah has a beginning. Nothing among existing things is coeval with the Creator and shares His temporal existence. Nor is any particular thing brought about ever known to be coeval with the agent that brings it about. Such concurrence is known only in the case of a condition and that which depends on it. A condition may coincide with that which depends on it, without existing before it; alternatively, it may exist before it. It must, however, exist together with it. Thus, if life is a condition for knowledge and will, these attributes may be concomitant among the attributes of Allah Most High, for His life