by means of itself, while abandoning the clear, manifest proof attested by the senses, known to people, and disputed by no rational person—namely, the coming into being of things whose origination is witnessed, and their need for an agent who is not himself originated but beginningless. These are matters necessarily known to rational people generally, disputed only by the very worst sophists.

This and similar arguments are what most people put forward in such a discussion. They say:

“We know necessarily that what Allah Most High has stated in the Quran does not establish the Maker’s existence by this method. Rather, what the Quran relates about Allah’s acts and states contradicts this method.”

They also say:

“Sound reason agrees with what is in the Quran. The coming into being of originated things is witnessed and known through sense perception and reason, and sound reason establishes that every originated thing must have an originator. Moreover, for something to come into being without a newly arising cause is rationally impossible.”

[Return to al-Bāqillānī’s discussion in Sharh al-Luma‘]

Judge Abū Bakr said:

“As for Abū al-Hasan’s statement, ‘Transformation, change, activity, and the production of effects are signs of temporal origination, and whatever did not precede originated things is itself originated like them’—there are two ways of discussing it.

“The first is to say: Changes are signs of temporal origination, because change is a thing’s passing from one state to another. It must therefore be either