of their speculative thinkers challenge the proof establishing a necessary existent, while many of their accomplished scholars and men of insight say that necessary existence is the very existence of created things.

Both positions ultimately amount to the same thing: the position of Pharaoh, who denied the Lord of the worlds. Pharaoh and others did not deny the existence of this observable world. Thus, whoever identifies it with necessary existence, or advances a position that establishes nothing beyond this, is denying the Maker.

Furthermore, if this is necessary existence, the impossibilities their position entails are many times greater than those they sought to escape, as we have explained elsewhere.

Whoever identifies it with the existence of every existent thereby declares that the very existence which came into being after not existing is necessary. Whoever identifies it with the existence of the celestial sphere makes the necessary existent dependent on something else and allows events to arise without an efficient cause, among other consequences. These contradict their own principles and those of others—principles whose validity is agreed upon—and plunge them into something worse than what they sought to escape.

The point here is that when He, glorified be He, said:

“Did We fail in the first creation?”

He did not mean weariness in the sense of fatigue. Rather, He meant inability to find the way to accomplish something, as the Arabs say, “He was at a loss over his task,” when someone cannot determine how to proceed.

Thus, the verse indicates the Creator’s knowledge and wisdom in a way that makes clear that He created the world by His will, power, wisdom, and knowledge.

One who created this world by His will, power, wisdom, and knowledge is all the more able to bring the dead to life.