He were a cause that necessitates its effects by His very essence, those effects would necessarily be eternal, contrary to sensory experience. For if the complete cause necessitating the production of a temporally originated thing existed eternally, temporally originated things would necessarily be eternal. If it did not exist eternally, its emergence after not existing would require a newly arising cause, to which the same reasoning would apply as to other originated things. Thus, nothing temporally originated could arise from a cause that necessitates its effects by its very essence. If, on the other hand, He acted by choice, the preceding argument would apply once again.

Since this argument is rooted in inquiry into the wisdom underlying the divine will, and why He did what He did—the “question of divine decree”—it illustrates what the early generations used to say: discussion of divine decree is “the ABCs of heresy.”

This also makes clear the wisdom of the Prophet’s prohibition, when he saw them disputing about divine decree, against doing what had caused earlier nations to perish. He, peace and blessings be upon him, said to them:

“This is what destroyed the nations before you: pitting