to be taken seriously, and that all rational people know this only through investigation and inquiry—even though no one renowned for learning is known to have sought proof of this. Nor has it been reported that any unbeliever demanded proof of this from any believer. Neither the Book of Allah, nor the Sunnah of His Messenger, nor the words of any of the early generations or leading scholars mention any need to establish this through inference, or through the argument you have presented: that it entails earlier and later occurrence, and therefore requires a determining factor.

[Section]

This reveals the second line of reasoning that shows why what al-Ash‘arī stated does not require what al-Qādī supplied.

Knowing that whatever comes into being must have someone who brings it into being is more immediately evident to reason, more firmly rooted in the heart, and clearer to learned and ordinary people alike than the argument used to establish it: that this entails some times, rather than others, being singled out for things to come into being, and that such a determination requires a determining factor.

If the first proposition is not stronger and clearer than the second, it is certainly no less so. The second can, at most, be equivalent to the first or constitute one particular instance of it.

This is especially so on the principle upheld by al-Qādī and those Mu‘tazilites and Ash‘arites who agree with him, for they allow events to occur at some times rather than others without any cause necessitating that particular determination. If they attribute this determination to the eternal will, that will bears the same relation to all events and all times.