He further states: A particular accident must either need a cause for its coming-to-be or not; the latter is unanimously false. If it does need a cause and that cause is itself originated, then an infinite number of causes and effects would have to exist all at once. If the cause is eternal, then the emergence of events from an eternal being becomes possible, and this undermines their proof.

As for al-Armawī’s objection—his claim that, “If by ‘cause’ you mean the complete cause, its origination does not point to the origination of the efficient agent, but only to its own origination or to the origination of some of its conditions”—we reply: Grant that this is so. If by its origination he means the origination of the complete cause, and that origination does not hinge on the coming-to-be of the agent but is satisfied by the emergence of some of the conditions, what answer can they offer here?

He also says that, in their view, the successive origination of an infinite series of conditions and requisites is permissible. We answer: Even if they deem it permissible, that in no way proves the soundness of their doctrine, its actual possibility, or the invalidity of what has been asserted. Rather, the origination of those conditions and requisites is refuted by the same reasoning that refutes the origination of a complete cause, for those newly arisen conditions and requisites themselves require an originator. And if one were to say that their origination depends on the full realization of the effect