Thus, if no contingent existent has been established, but only a necessary existent, nothing in this demonstrates that anything contingent exists. It could then be said that all existence is necessary, as those who profess the unity of existence say: the very existence of what is called contingent and temporally originated is identical to the existence of the necessary existent. Thus, the actual import of your statement that all existence is either necessary or contingent is that it is of two kinds: beginningless and temporally originated.

This statement serves no purpose. It merely sets out the division while leaving the existence of the necessary existent in doubt, or affirms a necessary existent encompassing both the temporally originated and the beginningless—which is certainly false. It therefore amounts to nothing but certainty about what is false or doubt about what is true.”

Or they may say: “All that exists could be necessary; alternatively, there could be no necessary existent at all, everything being either temporally originated or beginningless and contingent.”

Both positions are self-evidently false. Existence includes temporally originated things that did not exist and then came into being. These are contingent, and they must have something beginningless and eternal. Whatever is beginningless and eternal must exist necessarily and cannot be contingent.

This demonstrates that everything other than the necessary existent, the Originator, is temporally originated, coming into being after not having existed. All of this contradicts what they have said.

For this reason, the discussions of those who followed their method, such as al-Rāzī and al-Āmidī, contain confused arguments concerning the necessary and the contingent, cause and effect, which this is not the place to elaborate. These have been discussed elsewhere.