a temporally originated thing comes into existence, the temporally originated condition that completes its cause comes into existence simultaneously with it, not before it. That condition, in turn, comes into existence simultaneously with the condition completing its own cause, not before it, and so on. This entails an infinite regress of conditions completing causes at a single instant: what completes the cause of this temporally originated thing comes into existence at this time; what completes the cause of that completing condition also comes into existence at this time; and so on.

An infinite regress is impossible both in causes and in what completes them. Just as a cause cannot have a further cause, and that cause yet another cause, without end, so too what completes a cause cannot depend upon a further completing factor, and that factor upon yet another, without end.

All rational people agree that an infinite regress in causes and in what completes them is impossible, and its invalidity is self-evident to reason, whether the effect is said to coexist with its cause in time or to follow immediately after it.

Yet these thinkers cannot sustain their claim that anything in the world is eternal unless the effect coexists with its complete cause and does not come later. This then entails that, for every temporally originated thing, what completes its cause comes into existence simultaneously with it; what completes the cause of that completing condition also comes into existence simultaneously with it; and so on. This entails the existence of infinitely many temporally originated things at a single instant, rather than successively. They themselves concede that this is impossible, and its impossibility is self-evident to reason. It resembles the position of Ahl al-Maʿānī, the followers of Muʿammar.