an infinite regress. Rather, this second cause would bring about that condition or the removal of that impediment. The cause of the world is not the cause of some of the factors upon whose presence the world necessarily exists, whether this is said to be creation, speech, will, or something else.

If it is said, “The cause of that completing factor—the necessitating cause upon whose presence the effect must exist—is either fully present from eternity or it is not,” the chosen answer would be that it has always been present from eternity. There are then two answers.

The first is to say: We do not concede that the existence of an effect depends on such a cause. Rather, it may be said that, within known existence, there is no cause whose presence entails the existence of its effect with a necessity that cannot cease, such that one could say, “If it did not exist, the effect would not occur.” Nothing necessitates events except Allah’s will, and His will has no counterpart with which it could be compared. “There is nothing like Him.”

The second is to say: Its occurrence at a later time is due to the presence of its condition or the absence of its impediment. This regress of conditions and the absence of impediments is not impossible according to the opponent. What is impossible is a regress of complete causes, each of which necessitates the next. That is not the case here. Rather, the occurrence of this condition depends on another condition that is not its cause, and conditions may succeed one another.

The evidence for this is that events occur every day, and the world is filled with events. The complete necessitating cause of each event is either present from eternity or it is not, and the same division into alternatives applies again.