He said:

“These, then, are the principal arguments people have relied upon in this matter.”

[Ibn Taymiyya’s Commentary]

I say:

Abū ‘Abd Allāh al-Rāzī was among the fiercest opponents of the Karrāmiyya, to the extent that various disputes between him and them are recounted. His inclination toward the Mu‘tazila and the philosophers was greater than his inclination toward them. His statements varied regarding whether to declare them unbelievers, although his settled position was not to declare anyone among the people of the qiblah an unbeliever—neither them, nor the Mu‘tazila, nor others like them.

This question is among the best-known matters on which he disputes with them. Yet he has stated that most groups are logically committed to their position, and that their opponents have no sound argument against them apart from the argument he himself advanced. That argument, however, is among the weakest, as we shall explain, if Allah, exalted is He, wills.

As for the arguments advanced by the Kullābiyya and the Mu‘tazila, he himself has demonstrated their invalidity, despite having comprehensively surveyed the arguments of those who deny that temporal occurrences can subsist in Him. What he has presented brings together arguments found scattered throughout people’s books.

We shall explain this:

As for the first argument, namely:

“Whatever is capable of receiving something cannot be devoid of both it and its opposite. Thus, if it were possible for Him to be characterized by temporal occurrences, He would never be devoid of them; and whatever is never devoid of temporal occurrences is itself temporally originated.”

This argument rests on two premises, each of which is the subject of a well-known dispute among groups of Muslims: