With regard to an infinite regress in effects, people hold two well-known views.
The first rejects it; this is the position of many theologians, philosophers, and ḥadīth scholars.
The second permits it, and this likewise is affirmed by many ḥadīth scholars, theologians, and philosophers.

Those who allow such a regress maintain that everything other than God is created and originated—brought into existence after having been nothing—whether they say that the genus of intrinsic action is beginningless, or that the genus of both intrinsic and extrinsic action is beginningless. On either view, everything apart from God can still be a created, originated entity preceded by non-existence, while the Lord, by His will and power, brings all things into being.

The philosophers have no argument that truly contradicts this claim. They possess no proof that requires the eternity of the celestial spheres, the elements, or any part of the cosmos at all. All the evidence they advance points only to the perpetual actuality of the Lord as Agent—whether their proofs concern the agent, the matter, the form, the end, or anything else.

One such argument is their assertion that His being an agent is necessary to His very essence; for were it accidental, something would have had to occur to make Him so, and that could only be His own act and could not supervene upon what is prior. Therefore, His agency must be intrinsic to His essence.

Likewise they say: “He is bountiful, and the cause of His bounty is His very essence,” and the like. This shows only that the genus of action is essential to Him, not any particular act or specific effect. Nothing in these statements proves the pre-eternity of the heavens, of the matter of the heavens, or of any other class of created things. Rather, they indicate that no single, specific act is necessary to Him, for if—