entailed when that external temporal event depends on the event subsisting in the essence, and the latter depends on the external event. But if that external event depends on an event subsisting in the essence, and the latter depends on another external event, which in turn depends on another event subsisting in the essence, then what follows is merely an infinite succession of effects and of the completion of particular causal acts. On this supposition, circularity does not follow.

If what follows is an infinite succession of effects and particular causal acts, this does not entail circularity. Such an infinite succession is admissible according to these philosophers and many theologians, scholars of hadith, and others. This is neither an infinite regress nor circularity in the foundation of causation, for that is invalid by the consensus of rational people, just as circularity and an infinite regress in the causal agent itself are invalid. Circularity and infinite succession in the completion of particular causal acts are like infinite succession in the effects in question, whereas an infinite regress in the foundation of causation is like an infinite regress in the foundation of effects.

It may then be said: If this infinite succession is admissible, this argument is invalid. If it is impossible, temporal events must have a beginning, and all temporal events must proceed from something beginningless without a temporally originated cause, without necessitating the perpetual succession of temporal events 0. In that case, the validity of the position of the Karrāmiyyah follows, as does the validity of the position of other theologians—the Jahmiyyah, the Qadariyyah, and their followers—who maintain that all temporal events originate without a temporally originated cause. Their disagreement concerns only whether these events subsist in the essence or are separate from it.

[The Fourth Perspective]

In response, it may be said: Grant that if this external cause