“It is never free of combination or separation, and combination and separation may occur in it.”

Indeed, one may even maintain that they are composed of substances while denying that each of them admits of separation. Yet he bases his argument on substances being alike: whatever is possible for one is possible for another.

There is no doubt that, if the opponent concedes the likeness of substances and bodies, it becomes clear that all bodies came into being. For some of them certainly came into being, so all of them admit of coming into being. Whatever admits of coming into being cannot be self-existent; it must therefore have a Maker, whom he described as one who combines and separates.

But they say:

“What is known to have come into being consists of accidents.”

Accordingly, no substance is known to have come into being except through proof. If, by this, he means that some substances cannot be beginningless, this is not disputed by those who hold that originated individual entities are substances—and they constitute the majority of rational people. For it is known of necessity that the animals, plants and minerals whose coming into being we witness do indeed come into being. But someone who holds that bodies are composed of substances may say:

“What comes into being is combination and composition, which are accidents.”

The majority of rational people, however, say:

“What is observed coming into being consists of substances that subsist in themselves.”

The point, then, is that, for someone who holds that bodies are composed of indivisible atoms, this argument establishes that such composition must have an agent to compose it.

The statement of al-Ash'arī quoted by al-Shahrastānī rests on this premise. It offers nothing to anyone who disputes that premise.