in this process, an infinite regress of acts would necessarily follow, and the agent would have always been acting and the Creator would have always been creating.”

ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz would reply to him:

“I did not say that it is beginningless. Rather, I said that it is an attribute, that Allah has the power to perform it, and that nothing prevents Him from doing so. Whatever He has the power to perform, with nothing preventing Him from doing so, need not be beginningless alongside Him. Rather, if He wills, He performs it, and if He wills, He does not.”

As for your question about what caused it to originate, those who affirm the divine attributes have two answers here.

The first—which is the answer of the Karrāmiyyah and those who agree with them—is that an act must be affirmed for the effect, and an act of creation for the created thing. We understand that one who has the power to act has no act before performing it. Once he performs it, however, there is an act by which he produces the effect, and an act of creation by which he creates the created thing. Our aim is to affirm an act and an attribute of Allah that subsist in Him and are distinct from His created things. His speech belongs to this same category. We have not raised the objection of infinite regress against you, for it is invalid according to both our position and yours.

The second answer is for someone adopting it to say:

“There is nothing to prevent a particular act from being preceded by another act that Allah performed through His power. Infinite regress poses no difficulty for my position, for it is possible and admissible. This is an infinite regress in acts, effects, and conditions, and such a regress is not impossible.”

On the basis of the first answer, the meaning of his statement becomes clear:

“I merely said that it has always been the case that the Creator would create and act; I did not say that He has always been creating and acting.”