is self-evident, and that if a hungry person is given the choice of eating either of two loaves that are equal in every respect, he must choose one of them. Indeed, he begins by breaking off a piece from one side of that loaf without any cause peculiar to that side. Likewise, a sleeping person turns from one side to the other without any determining factor. They claimed that this, too, is self-evident.

The fourth is that most of the Muʿtazilah claimed that entities are alike in being entities but differ in their essential attributes, and that there is no cause for each entity to possess its particular attribute.

The fifth is that the philosophers claimed that the motions of the celestial sphere aim at attaining likeness, even though, had those motions occurred in the opposite direction, or faster or slower than they actually did, likeness would still have been attained without any determining factor.