The groups also disagree over this principle, and most philosophers and most hadith scholars do not rule it out. As for the speculative theologians, the Muʿtazila have two positions on it, as do the Ashʿariyya.

As for the second argument—namely, “If He were receptive to them, He would have been receptive to them from eternity. This depends upon their existence being possible, yet their existence from eternity is impossible”—he answered it with a counterargument: He has power over temporally originated events, yet the eternity of His power does not entail that what lies within His power is eternally possible.

I say:

This argument can also be answered in other ways.

First: It is not conceded that, if He is receptive to the occurrence of a temporally originated event, His being receptive to it from eternity requires that the event itself be capable of existing from eternity. For saying, “He is receptive to what cannot be eternal,” is equivalent to saying, “He has power over what cannot be eternal.” Thus, someone who believes that a temporally originated event cannot occur from eternity, while nevertheless affirming that He has power over temporally originated events and is receptive to them, is not thereby committed to affirming that what lies within His power and what He is receptive to can exist from eternity.

However, this is the standpoint of those who say:

“Temporally originated events cannot occur without a temporally originated cause.”

The same discussion applies both to His power and to His receptivity. Thus, whoever allows temporally originated events to occur without a temporally originated cause—as do the Kullābiyya and their counterparts among the Muʿtazila and the Karrāmiyya—his argument on this matter is