entails knowledge, specification entails will, and the goodness of well-being entails wisdom.

Every occurrence indicates this just as every other does. Just as one occurrence points to the Creator Himself, so does another. Thus, created things are signs pointing to Him, and Allah has called them signs. Their being signs does not depend on a universal inference, whether analogical or syllogistic. Although such inference corroborates them and supports what they imply, the hearts’ knowledge of what these signs and indications imply need not depend on it. Rather, hearts know what they entail and indicate, even without entertaining the proposition that neither of a contingent thing’s two alternatives can prevail over the other without a determining factor, or that its existence cannot prevail over its nonexistence without such a factor.

From this, it becomes clear that there is no need for the dispute among certain speculative thinkers over whether the reason for dependence on the Maker is coming into being, contingency, or both together. Every created thing is, in its very self and essence, dependent upon the Creator, and this dependence is an inseparable attribute of it.

This means that its reality cannot exist except through a Creator who creates it. If its reality is observed as existing in the external world, it is known that it must have an agent. If it is conceived in the mind, it is known that it cannot exist in the external world except through an agent. Even if it is assumed to be conceived without qualification, it is known that it cannot exist except through an agent. In itself, therefore, it cannot exist except through an agent. This is known simply by conceiving it, even if the heart is unaware