Then those who deny the divine attributes say:

“One possibility prevailed over the other through power alone.”

This is also the principle adopted by the Qadariyyah. The Muʿtazilah combined both positions. As for those who affirm the attributes, such as the Kullābiyyah and Karrāmiyyah, they claim that one possibility prevailed through an eternal, beginningless will. Both views are rejected by most rational people. Thus, many who have written on this subject, such as al-Rāzī and earlier leading figures in speculative theology and philosophy—including al-Shahrastānī and those before him from the various theological and philosophical schools—offer nothing beyond the philosophers’ account in terms of a cause, the Muʿtazilite account in terms of power, or the Kullābī account in terms of will. All three are rejected by reason and revelation. Hence, al-Rāzī’s discussions concerning an agent endowed with power and choice are exceedingly weak in supporting the Muslims’ position; they lend clearer support to the eternalists’ position.

The adherents of innovated speculative theology argued that a beginningless succession of events is impossible. They say:

“If there were a beginningless succession of events, and we considered those that occurred before the Flood and those that occurred before the Hijrah and compared the two, they would either be equal—which is impossible, since the greater would then equal the lesser—or differ in number, so that there would be a difference in magnitude between infinities, which is impossible.”

They advance other arguments that have been discussed at length elsewhere. Others have examined this “argument” and similar ones and demonstrated their invalidity: the difference occurs only at the finite end, not at the infinite end, and because this