the Lord, glorified and exalted is He, is that if they subsisted in Him, He could not be devoid of them, which would entail His being temporally originated. Thus, if the opponent allows a substance to be devoid of temporally originated events, even though its reception of them is possible and admissible, no proof can then stand that the Creator cannot receive temporally originated events.”

I say:

One might say: At most, this presses the following implication upon these Mu‘tazilites: “If you allow this, you will have a proof that the Creator cannot receive temporally originated events.”

The reply is:

Either this follows necessarily, or it does not. If it does, this shows that the Mu‘tazilites have no proof of that claim, and neither does he. For the mere agreement of the Mu‘tazilites with him does not constitute proof for either party on any issue in which we know of no disagreement—how, then, could it do so when disagreement is evident? If it does not follow necessarily from their position, it is no argument against them.

It is thus clear that he has offered no proof that something capable of receiving a thing cannot be devoid of both that thing and its opposite.

The second passage—

Elsewhere in the book, he said: