Accordingly, people hold several positions on whether that which does not precede events as a class must itself have originated:

The first is that it must have originated, without qualification.

The second is that it need not have originated.

The third is that if it depends on something else, it must have originated; but if it is independent of anything else, it need not have originated.

Furthermore, that which does not precede its own events need not have originated, whereas that which does not precede the events occurring in something else has originated.

This has been established elsewhere.

Anyone who understands what we have explained and examines what people have written on this subject—arguing that bodies originated because they cannot be free of events, and whatever does not precede events must have originated—will recognize that many of them have failed to set out all the premises of the proof.

As for those who have set out its premises in full, the validity of that premise remains a matter for discussion with them. It is well known that most adherents of the religious communities and most philosophers—or many of both groups—dispute this premise and refute it.

Since these people and others like them claim that knowledge of Allah can be attained only through reason, and understand reason to mean arguments such as this invalid proof—which, at best, even if deemed valid, enables only a few people to reach the desired conclusion, after immense effort and grave risk—and seek through such arguments to reject what is indicated by the Book