alike, and that what is correct in it—namely, that a temporally originated or contingent being cannot be singled out without a determining factor—comes from the Mu'tazilah’s reasoning, with which he agreed. Some of its errors come from them, but most come from him. He demanded that the Mu'tazilah apply this principle consistently, and when they failed to do so, he refuted their position.

It may therefore be said to him:

The falsity of the Mu'tazilah’s position does not establish the truth of yours, unless yours and theirs were the only possible positions.

How could that be so, when the views of the leading philosophers fall outside both positions? Likewise, do not the views held by the leading scholars of the Sunnah and hadith fall outside both positions?

The views set forth in the divine scriptures—the Torah and the Quran, than which no book from Allah Most High offers greater guidance—do not fall under either position. Thus, even if a particular position is assumed to be false, it does not follow that yours is true. How much less so when the very argument by which you invalidate the Mu'tazilah’s position also invalidates yours? Your position is more unsound than theirs if theirs is unsound; and if theirs is correct, yours is likewise unsound. Yours is therefore unsound in either case.

For your principal argument against their position is that one time rather than another cannot be singled out for coming into being without a newly arising determining cause.