If it is said that nothing real has come into existence, then, since He did not see it before creating it, He would not see it after creating it either.

If it is said that something real has come into existence, then that reality must subsist either in the Lord’s Essence or in something other than Him. If it subsists in something other than Him, it follows that someone other than Allah is the one who saw it. If it subsists in His Essence, then it is established that His seeing that thing which has come into existence subsists in Him, as Allah Most High says:

“And say, ‘Act, for Allah will see your deeds, as will His Messenger and the believers.’”

(al-Tawbah: 105)

As for what they call relations, states, connections, and so forth, they are asked: Do these things exist or not? If they do not exist, then there is no difference between His state before seeing and hearing and His state after seeing and hearing, for continued nonexistence cannot account for His having come to see and hear.

If you say, rather, that these are realities that exist, then you have acknowledged that His seeing a particular thing was not previously occurring, then came to occur in His Essence, and that it is something real.

The argument against the philosophers is not confined to newly arising relations. They are also confronted with His bringing into being events that arise one after another. Bringing into being belongs to the category of acting, and acting is one of the ten categories, which are realities that exist.

Thus, it is said: His being the agent of these particular events, after not being their agent, must either be something newly occurring, or His being their agent has not newly occurred. If His being their agent has not newly occurred, then His state before bringing them into being and His state after bringing them into being are the same. Yet before bringing them into being, He was not their agent. It follows that nothing comes into being, or that something comes into being without