for it. But this is unnecessary. Rather, one may say:

If a beginningless existent is necessary in itself, its nonexistence is impossible. If it is not, then whatever brings it about—whether called a necessitating cause or a voluntary agent—either depends, in bringing it about, on a newly arising condition or does not. The second alternative is impossible, for a beginningless existent cannot depend on a newly arising condition: if it did, it would exist alongside that condition or after it. If it does not depend on a newly arising condition, then the complete cause that necessarily entails its existence must have existed from eternity. Its continued existence must therefore follow from the continued existence of that complete cause.

As for the claim that volition cannot be the cause of a beginningless existent, that is a matter of discussion and dispute for which this is not the place. The point here is that his opponent disputed his assertion that rest has positive existence.

Al-Rāzī argued against him as follows:

“The replacement of motion by rest in a single body, and vice versa, entails that one of them has positive existence, because the removal of nonexistence is existence. The other must therefore also have positive existence, because motion is being in one location after having been in another, whereas rest is being in one location after having been in that same location. They differ only in whether the preceding location was different. This is an accidental attribute that does not preclude their having the same essence. It follows that both have positive existence.”