These thinkers disagreed over whether the consequence alleged against them really followed. Even supposing that it did, this would not resolve the difficulty. If the difficulty remained unresolved, it would constitute an argument against both sides, and its conclusion would have to be accepted.

Consider in this connection what Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Rāzī presented in his best-known work, al-Arbaʿīn, the objections raised against him by Abū al-Thanāʾ Mahmūd al-Urmawī, the author of Lubāb al-Arbaʿīn, and his own answer to the difficulty. Al-Rāzī presented it, set out the answers others had given, and demonstrated their invalidity. He then answered by pressing a consequence against his opponents, although elsewhere he answers with the very responses whose invalidity he demonstrated here.

He said: “Their argument is as follows:

All contingent beings depend upon the Necessary Existent. If anything indispensable to His producing effects was not present from eternity, then, if its coming into existence did not depend upon a cause, a contingent being would have come into existence without a cause. If it did depend upon a cause, the same question would arise concerning that cause, leading to an infinite regress.

If, however, everything required was present from eternity, then, if the effect necessarily existed along with it, the effect would necessarily be eternal, since what produces it is eternal. If this were not necessary, the effect could exist along with it at one time and be absent at another. One alternative would therefore be favored over the other. If this did not depend upon anything further, a contingent being would come into existence without a determining factor; if it did, the initial supposition would be contradicted.”