and is therefore preceded in time by something other than itself. Whatever is so preceded must have been brought into being. A complete causal agent necessarily entails the existence of its effect immediately upon the completion of its causal action.

Their position, however, commits them to untenable consequences that demonstrate its falsity. These include the following:

Nothing would ever come into being in the world. For if the cause is complete and eternal, and its effect coexists with it in time, while everything other than it is its effect, whether directly or through an intermediary, then everything other than Allah must be beginningless and eternal.

Another consequence is that nothing could come into being until infinitely many events came into being in a single instant. They and all other rational people agree that this is impossible. It amounts to an infinite regress of newly occurring causes and effects, or of what completes them. For whenever something comes into being, it cannot do so until its complete cause—or what completes that cause—comes into being alongside it. That, in turn, cannot come into being until something of the same kind comes into being alongside it. This would require infinitely many causes and effects, or infinitely many completions of causes and effects, to exist in a single instant.

If they say, “Every newly occurring thing is conditional upon the nonexistence of what precedes it,” this is inconsistent with their position, because the nonexistence of the first event precedes the second event. According to them, however, the complete cause must coexist with its effect and cannot precede it.

This is, however, consistent with the position of Ahl al-Sunnah, who say that the effect occurs immediately upon the completion of the complete cause, not simultaneously with it. Thus, the second event comes into being immediately after the first ceases to exist.