in all of which the most you can establish is an unceasing succession of events. For neither these arguments nor others like them demonstrate that anything in the world is eternal: neither the heavens—which Allah has told us He created, together with the earth and everything between them, in six days—nor anything else.

They may then say to them:

Events either have a beginning, as we maintain, or need not have one, as you maintain.

If the former is true, your position is invalid: events must have a beginning, and your assertion that the motions of the celestial spheres are eternal is therefore false. This is precisely what we sought to establish.

If the latter is true, the coming into being of the celestial sphere and its motions could depend on preceding events, as with daily events, and those events could in turn depend on others.

This accords with what the Messengers have conveyed: that Allah, glorified be He, created the heavens and the earth and everything between them in six days, and that His Throne was upon the water. It also accords with the reports stating that He created them from smoke and vapour arising from water—all of these being causes that themselves came into being. It likewise accords with Allah’s declaration that He is the Creator of all things. Nothing in your arguments contradicts this.

[The Second Argument]

It may be said:

The unceasing activity of the Lord Most High and an unceasing succession of events are compatible with an unceasing succession of acts that subsist in the Lord through His will and power, occurring one after another, and with events external to Him coming into being one after another.

On either supposition, nothing in the world would be eternal. Why, then, do you say that this is not so, even if what you have stated is correct? If it is false, your position is more untenable still.

If they seek to justify their position by saying that no attributes or acts subsist in the Necessary Existent, the response has several aspects: