that everything subsisting in itself originated in time—indeed, that everything that exists did so. Thus, the argument they presented implied that all existing things originated in time, even the Lord, exalted is He. Clearly, no argument for this could be sound. They used it against those who claimed that some created things, such as the elements and the heavens, are eternal, thus countering falsehood with falsehood.

They then became deeply inconsistent over how to establish the temporal origination of attributes and their bearers, as we have discussed elsewhere. Then these men came and agreed with them in substance, though not in wording. They claimed that the temporal origination of an entity whose attribute they termed an “accident” could be inferred from the temporal origination of its attribute. They further claimed that none of the attributes of created things persists for two moments, and that anything capable of possessing an attribute must possess either it or its opposite. The logical implications of their position entail that same claim, notwithstanding the obstinate denials to which they committed themselves in some passages, even though elsewhere they acknowledged the truth