Nor can it be so without any cause—whether itself, an attribute, or anything else—for that would leave its existence at a particular time no more likely than its nonexistence and its remaining nonexistent. Since its existence is known to have been favoured over its nonexistence, it cannot be without a cause. Once these alternatives have been ruled out, it becomes known that these originated events were assigned particular times of existence only by one who made them so and willed that some should precede others and some follow others. Thus, what we have stated is established.”

What al-Qādī Abū Ya'lā has presented here, along with others who followed this method, such as Abū Muhammad ibn al-Labbān and, before them both, al-Qādī Abū Bakr, is of the same kind as what has already been discussed.

When presenting their method of establishing that bodies are originated—on the grounds that whatever does not precede originated events is itself originated—most of these people state this as an accepted premise, as though it were self-evident. Alongside this, they state that originated events must be finite, treating this as an accepted premise or a necessary truth, thereby equating the kind with its individual instances. Thus, after establishing that accidents are originated and that a body is inseparable from them, they say, for example:

“Originated events have a first point at which they began, contrary to Ibn al-Rāwandī and other heretics. The proof of this is our knowledge that ‘originated’ means something that exists after not having existed, and that originated events are things that exist after not having existed. If any of them had no beginning, it would necessarily be eternal. This is false, given the proof we have already presented that they are originated.