If you say, “That occurred without a cause,” this would be even more astonishing than your first claim, since the One who has power would become capable after having been incapable, without anything new arising to bring about His power.

If you say what Abū al-Husayn stated:

“An agent is rationally understood as one who brings a thing into existence from nonexistence; thus, its existence from eternity is impossible,”

you are told:

“An agent is not an agent until he brings a thing into existence from nonexistence. Thus, the act itself, or its product, cannot be eternal.

“But why do you claim that a particular act requires the absence of any other act? Why do you claim that He cannot be the Maker of these heavens and this earth unless He had previously performed no act whatsoever, and that He cannot act unless action of any kind on His part had been nonexistent—indeed, impossible? This is not rationally necessary. Rather, reason recognizes that He brought a thing into existence from nonexistence, even if, before bringing it into existence, He had brought something else into existence from nonexistence.”

They may say, “In the beginning, He had always been able to act.” This is contradictory, for, according to them, action was not possible for Him in the very state in which He was capable.

Their claim therefore really amounts to saying, “He was capable when He was not capable.” For one who has power has power only over what is possible for him, not what is impossible for him. If action from eternity—meaning perpetual action, that is, action that continues in kind—cannot possibly be within His power, then He cannot be capable of it.

This is among the things for which Muslims reproached these speculative theologians, and it was one of the reasons why some of them were cursed from the pulpits.