On this view, it follows that everything other than Allah Most High has been brought into being.

This demonstrates the falsity of their position and the soundness of the Muslims’ position. They may liken their position to something that proceeds gradually from an agent acting by choice or by nature, as with a falling stone or someone travelling to a town. The traveller covers the distance little by little, while the factor impelling him to cover it—his intention to reach that town—remains in place. Yet his traversing the second part of the distance is conditional upon the cessation of the first.

They may be answered as follows:

This demonstrates the unsoundness of your position. There is no complete causal agent here whose effect coincides with it. The effect comes into existence only immediately after the completion of the causal action, not simultaneously with it. Thus, this is not analogous to your position. Rather, it is analogous to the position of those who say that He has always brought one thing into being after another, and that His bringing the second into being is conditional upon the cessation of the first.

This parallels the position of those who say that He has always been One who speaks whenever He wills and does whatever He wills. The existence of the second—such as the second act of willing, the second utterance, or the second act—is conditional upon the first coming to an end. With the cessation of the first, the causal agent necessitating the existence of the second becomes complete.

Accordingly, everything other than the Lord is originated, coming into existence after not having existed. He alone is eternal and beginningless. Nothing He has brought into being is beginningless, even if it is posited that He has always been acting. Nothing alongside Him is coeternal with Him; rather, nothing brought into being is beginningless