by Allah—is self-evident and requires neither examining alternatives nor resorting to discursive reasoning.
Once it is clear in general that whatever comes into existence requires a determining factor, that factor must either necessitate its coming into existence, as a cause necessitates its effect, or be a natural principle, as the naturalists maintain. It is untenable for it to operate as a necessitating cause, for a cause necessitates its effect’s coexistence with it. If the determining factor were assumed to be a cause, it would have to be either eternal or newly originated.
If it were eternal, the world would necessarily have to exist from eternity. This would entail affirming the eternity of the world, whereas we have established proof that it came into existence.
If it were newly originated, it would require a determining factor, and the question of what necessitates each necessitating factor would then lead to an infinite regress.
Whoever claims that the determining factor is a natural principle has asserted an impossibility. According to those who affirm such a principle, it necessarily produces its effect whenever impediments are removed. If that natural principle were eternal, it would entail the eternity of the world; if it were newly originated, it would require a determining factor.”
He said:
“Once it has been shown that the world’s determining factor is neither a cause nor a natural principle operating necessarily of itself, without choice, it must then be concluded with certainty that the determining factor of things that come into existence is an agent who brings them about by choice, determining their occurrence with particular qualities and at particular times.”
I say:
As you can see, this method is of the same kind as Abū al-Husayn’s method, and likewise those of al-Qādī Abū Bakr, al-Qādī Abū Ya‘lā, Ibn ‘Aqīl, and others.
Everyone of sound natural disposition knows that knowing that whatever comes into existence must have an originator is more evident than knowing that determination must have a determining factor. For determination is merely one kind of occurrence; they do not mean by this that every