If that were true, then all His actions would necessarily be eternal, for a complete cause entails its effect. In that case every effect would be eternal and nothing in the universe would be newly originated—a conclusion flatly contradicted by direct observation.
From this the weakness of the argument that has perplexed the minds of most speculative thinkers becomes evident. When they contend that everything required for Him to be an agent must exist from pre-eternity—otherwise it would arise later without a complete cause, which they deem impossible—and that, if it exists from pre-eternity, the effect must accompany it, they overlook the ambiguity of the term “agency.” Agency may refer to the genus of acting, to a particular act, or to a universal acting upon everything; in other words it may be general, absolute, or specific. If it means acting upon everything, the result is that everything is eternal, a claim contradicted by sensory experience.
If they intend a specific act, the argument still does not prove its impossibility, for the act could depend on an occurrence that precedes it; they themselves, along with all rational people, concede that a given entity can come into existence. And if they mean the genus, it points only to the perpetual continuity of the kind, not to the pre-eternity of any individual thing. Thus their reasoning establishes the eternity of nothing in the created order.
Furthermore, al-azal (pre-eternity) does not denote a particular moment in time. So when one says that all the factors involved in His being an agent are pre-eternal, we must ask: Is this with respect to His agency in general, His agency toward a specific thing, or His agency toward everything?
The first is conceded by the Salaf and the leading imams—and it does not aid their cause; the second is rejected, as is the third. For His acting upon one thing after another requires only the everlasting nature of His agency, not the pre-eternity of any created thing. The perpetual succession of acts, one following another, is