As for what comes into being after not existing, neither these thinkers nor rational people generally have disputed that its existence can prevail over its nonexistence only through something that requires it. Thus, arguing from the preponderance of the existence of what comes into being over its nonexistence would be preferable to arguing from the preponderance of the existence of every contingent being—even supposing that the contingent were a broader category than what comes into being. How much more so, then, if nothing is contingent unless it comes into being?

Second:

He said:

“There would have been no more reason for it to come into being than not to, were it not for something that required it to come into being.”

He thus made clear that existence cannot prevail over nonexistence without something that requires it. He did not say:

“Neither of the two alternatives can prevail over the other without something that gives it preponderance.”

What Abū al-Husayn said is agreed upon among the various groups and is self-evident and necessarily known by reason. By contrast, what those others said is disputed and fraught with confusion; it is not self-evident to reason. Rather, the correct view entails it.

Likewise, Abū al-Husayn consistently says:

“Whatever exists contingently would have no more reason to exist than not to exist, were it not for an agent.”

This is sound. However, Ibn Sīnā took the approach he followed from the books of the Muʿtazilah and other Muslim theologians like them. He sought to bring it closer to the doctrine of his predecessors, the eternalist philosophers, so that his discourse on theology would approximate the general character of the discourse of Muslim theologians. He then takes the points on which the theologians departed from revealed law