If you wish, you may also treat the first premise as a supposition, as previously noted ن, so that the answer becomes clear under every supposition and according to the position of every group of Muslim thinkers. Some maintain that causal action upon originated things has positive existence and is beginningless; others maintain that it lacks positive existence; and still others affirm an infinite succession of originated effects.

The proponent of the world’s eternity bases his argument on the claim that beginningless causal action having positive existence is indispensable, and that this necessarily entails a beginningless effect.

Each supposition can therefore be answered as follows: if causal action lacks positive existence, the first premise is invalid, and originated events can occur without causal action having positive existence. If causal action has positive existence—and an infinite succession of originated events is possible—it could originate through an infinite succession of effects, and your claim that such a succession is impossible is invalid. If an infinite succession of effects is impossible, there must be either beginningless causal action or originated causal action brought about through power, or through power and beginningless will. Since originated events are observable, they must arise from either beginningless or originated causal action. If originated events can arise from either beginningless or originated causal action, the argument is invalid.

The basis of this reasoning is that we observe events coming into being. They must therefore have one who brings them into being, namely, the causal agent; his bringing them into being is the causal action. The same reasoning applies to bringing these events into being and acting causally upon them as to bringing the world into being and its being causally affected.

These proponents of the world’s eternity base this argument on the claim that originated causal action is indispensable and therefore requires further originated causal action, just as they based the first argument on the claim that an originated cause is indispensable. Thus, both arguments draw upon the same source concerning infinite succession among effects: those who affirm the world’s eternity and those who affirm its origination, just as groups among the adherents of religious traditions—or most of them—admit its possibility.