These people may therefore be told: “In that case, an endless succession of newly arising things is possible both in what is received and in what lies within power, just as it is possible in objects of power separate from Him. There is no difference between them.”

The conclusive, two-part response is this: the existence of an endless succession of newly arising things is either possible or impossible. If it is possible, then newly arising things could exist as a kind from eternity. In that case, the entailed consequence is not ruled out, and the second premise is invalid.

If it is impossible, then one cannot say that He is receptive to them from eternity with a receptivity that entails the possible existence of what is received. In that case, their existence from eternity does not follow, and the first premise is invalid.

It is thus clear that one of the two premises must be invalid; whichever is invalid, the argument is invalid. This response is not based on the opponent’s concessions, but is grounded in knowledge and decisively refutes the argument.

There is a third way of responding, according to the position of those among Ahl al-Sunnah, the scholars of hadith and others who say that He has always spoken whenever He wills, and that motion is a necessary concomitant of life. They say that He is receptive to these newly arising things from eternity and that they exist from eternity.

The argument he presented entails the correctness of their position concerning what lies within power and what is received. They say that He will forever have power over these things and that they will forever be possible. It therefore follows that He has always had power over them and that they have always been possible, for this power and this possibility