a transition from one beginningless state to another, from one temporally originated state to another, from a beginningless state to a temporally originated state, or from a temporally originated state to a beginningless state.

The first possibility is invalid for two reasons:

First, whatever undergoes a transition enters a new state that it was not previously in, and that state cannot be beginningless.

Second, this would entail the cessation of something beginningless, as explained earlier, whereas something beginningless cannot cease to exist.”

He said:

“It is impossible for change to be a transition out of a temporally originated state, because this can be established only in one of two ways: either through the occurrence of a change in what is beginningless, or through the cessation of a property of it whose beginninglessness has been established, together with the necessary temporal origination of the attribute it acquires after not previously possessing it.

Whatever admits of originated events is never devoid of them or their opposites. Whatever did not exist before the first originated events and was never free of them is itself temporally originated, just as they are.”

He said:

“There is no disagreement between us and them—meaning the Mu‘tazilah—on this point that would warrant discussing it at length.”