exist and then came into existence. Indeed, rational people agree that a contingent being—one that can exist or not exist—can only come into existence after not existing; it cannot be beginningless and eternal.

This is something on which the philosophers agree with all other rational people. Aristotle and all his followers explicitly stated it, including Ibn Sīnā and his followers. Yet Ibn Sīnā and his followers contradicted themselves, claiming elsewhere that a contingent being, which can exist or not exist, may be beginningless and eternal. The philosophers before him—even al-Fārābī—made no such claim and did not contradict themselves. We have quoted their statements elsewhere.

As for the second premise on which they based the impossibility of successive causes, it rests on the impossibility of temporal occurrences having no beginning. An adherent of philosophy does not accept this, so they could not use it as a premise to establish the Necessary Existent.

The truth is that this premise is unnecessary. Indeed, establishing the Necessary Existent does not require this method at all, as we have explained elsewhere.

Despite their extensive discussions of theoretical and rational matters, and their exaltation of divine science as the foremost, highest, noblest, and most exalted of the sciences, you find that these people fail to establish what it is meant to establish. They even fail to establish what is known to the vast majority of humankind. Even when they do establish it, they take a lengthy route when a shorter one is available. Indeed, they may cause people to doubt what is self-evidently known to them through their innate disposition.