this method—was originally the position of the Jahmiyyah and the Mu'tazilah, though some others agreed with them.

This is the method of the Mu'tazilah, such as Abū 'Alī, Abū Hāshim, Abū al-Husayn al-Basīrī, and others like them.

They disagree over whether the first obligation is rational inquiry leading to knowledge that the world came into being, the intention to undertake such inquiry, or the doubt preceding that intention. These are three well-known positions among them.

The majority who disagreed with them have acknowledged that establishing the existence of the Maker does not depend on this method, nor does establishing that the world came into being.

Al-Rāzī mentioned five methods by which knowledge of the Maker is established:

The first is inference from the temporal origination of entities, such as inference from the temporal origination of bodies, based on the temporal origination of accidents, such as motion and rest, and on the impossibility of an infinite series.

This is the method of most of the Mu'tazilah and those Ash'arīs who agreed with them, such as Abū al-Ma'ālī and others like him.

The second is inference from the contingency of bodies. This is the philosophers’ principal argument, and it rests on the premise that bodies are contingent because they are composite.