section is to draw attention to the argument that the proponents of the world’s eternity continually invoke and rely upon. It is this: the conditions upon which the Creator’s—exalted is He—causal efficacy with respect to the world depends are either all eternal or not. The second alternative is false, for if any of them were originated, its origination would require a cause. The same reasoning would apply to His causing that further thing as applied to the first, thus entailing an infinite regress, which is impossible. Therefore, all the conditions required for Allah’s—exalted is He—causal efficacy with respect to the world are eternal.

Furthermore, it is evident that whenever a cause possesses all the conditions required for causal efficacy, the effect must follow from it. For if the effect could fail to follow, then its proceeding from a cause possessing all those conditions and its not proceeding from that cause would be equally possible. If that were so, its proceeding rather than not proceeding could prevail only through an additional determining factor. Thus, not all the conditions required for causal efficacy would have been present before this additional factor arose, although we had assumed that they were. This is a contradiction.”

He said:

“Once these two premises are established, the eternity of His acts follows from the eternity of the Creator. This is the precise formulation of this argument.”