As for the second method, on which Qādī Abū Bakr relied, it can, despite its length, be formulated using sound premises. Yet among its premises he included the similarity of substances and the finitude of events that come into being.

Every rational believer knows that acknowledging the Maker requires neither of these premises. Indeed, people’s knowledge that whatever comes into being must have someone who brings it into being requires neither of them. He mentioned these two premises alongside others, but the other premises he cited suffice without them: the similarity of accidents, such as portions of blackness, makes the similarity of substances unnecessary for his argument.

Likewise, his first argument against something’s coming earlier because of a cause suffices without the second argument, which rests on the finitude of events that come into being.

It should also be understood that those who follow innovated methods to establish the existence of the Maker and the truthfulness of His messengers, if they believe that their method is the only one, label anyone who disputes its validity a heretic, an eternalist, or the like. They state this in various places.

One instance is the following: when they came to believe that establishing the existence of the Maker, exalted is He, depended on establishing