Nor does it pose a problem for something to be nonexistent in pre-eternity and to exist thereafter, as with newly originated acts.

This is a well-founded answer on their behalf. It succeeds, however, only if the absence of speech and will in pre-eternity is not an attribute of imperfection. Their position on this is like that of the Muʿtazilah, though it is superior in two respects:

First, they hold that speech and will subsist in His essence. This, however, is a separate discussion, not peculiar to this issue.

Second, they affirm an eternal will and an eternal capacity.

Moreover, his claim that he has proved that newly arising occurrences must be finite is not correct. The discussion of what he and others have advanced, and the weakness of those arguments, has already been presented.

[Third]

Abū al-Hasan al-Āmidī said—meaning, in explaining their inconsistency—that their position is that newly arising speech and newly arising will are accidents, like color, taste, and smell, and that, in the observable realm, there may be an absence