it would be said that the occurrence of newly originated things amounts to the realization of one possibility rather than another without a determining cause. If something can come into being without anything new inhering in the agent, creation itself being merely a relation and attribution, then it is possible that nothing arises anew except the relation of eternal knowledge to the object known, with only a corresponding relation and attribution arising anew.

[The Eighth Argument]

It may be stated as follows:

There is no doubt that things brought into being come into existence successively. Thus, His actually bringing a particular originated thing into being is not something inseparable from His essence. Rather, He became its originator after not having been so. This agency therefore passes from potentiality to actuality.

Either His being an agent is purely relational, with no act inhering in His essence by virtue of which He is an agent—as maintained by those who say, “Creation is the created thing”—or His being an agent is something real that inheres in Him, and creation is distinct from the created thing, as held by the majority of Ahl al-Sunnah and others.

If the first position is adopted, it is clear that, if His being an agent is said to be relational, His being a knower may likewise be said to be relational.

On this understanding, people hold two views concerning agency. Some say that things brought into being originate through an eternal bringing into being, while nothing new occurs when the thing brought into being comes to exist. Others say that agency is nothing but a pure relation, eternally and forever. According to this latter view, the same could be said of knowledge.