that admits of no doubt; for it is known that whatever comes into being cannot do so without someone bringing it into being, nor can it come into being by itself. Thus He said:

“Were they created by nothing, or are they themselves the creators? (35)” [al-Tūr: 35]

This entails combining two contradictories, along with other impossibilities. Although its rational impossibility is among the clearest self-evident truths, being its own agent requires its existence to precede itself, while being its own product requires its existence to follow itself. It would therefore have to be both existent and nonexistent at the same instant.

The point here is to show the varying degrees of contradiction in their arguments, and that what they affirm entails a greater absurdity than what they sought to escape.

The reply, then, is this:

Suppose that it came into being by itself, without anyone bringing it into being, but rather from sheer nonexistence. Besides being self-evidently false, this is plainly among the things furthest removed from perceptible realities and rational analogy. Whoever allows that what exists could have proceeded from sheer nonexistence should find its proceeding from a necessitating cause that does not entail the existence of its effect more reasonable and less fraught with absurdity. Yet this is precisely what they sought to escape. For the most this entails is that a complete cause exists without its effect, or that an effect proceeds from a cause that is not complete. It is known that its proceeding from nothing is far more impossible and untenable than its proceeding from a cause that is not complete. It is also known that a complete cause without an effect is less untenable and impossible than something coming into being without any cause whatsoever; for an effect is either