If it is said:

“He may create it within Himself through an act of creation, while that act of creation occurs without another act of creation, through power and will alone. This is like the position of those who say that He speaks by His will and power, and that His speaking is an act that occurs through His power and will. We say that this act is the act of creation.”

They may be answered as follows:

On this account, the division now includes a “temporal occurrence” that subsists in Him without being created. On this supposition, it is possible to say of the Quran that it comes into being, or is brought into being, without being created. If the “first alternative” is correct, then its being uncreated does not entail its being eternal. Rather, it may come into being without being created. Thus, denying that it is created does not entail that it is eternal, and the argument therefore does not establish the position of the Kullābiyyah.

To summarize: either it is said that coming into being is broader than being created, so that something may come into being within Him without being created; or it is said that everything that comes into being is created, on the premise that no temporal occurrence subsists in His essence, or on the premise that whatever subsists in Him, if it comes into being, is created.

If the “first alternative” is correct, then its being uncreated does not entail its being eternal. Rather, it may come into being without being created. If, however, an alternative other than the “first” is correct, then the statement that He does not create it within Himself can only be established by disproving the possibility of temporal occurrences subsisting in Him.

But if the aim is to demonstrate that it is not created within Him—even if it comes into being within Him—this is established by arguing that, if it were created, there would have to be an act by which it was created. The act of creation itself, however, is not created; rather, it comes into being. For if it were created, every act of creation would be created, and there would consequently be something created without an act of creation. This combines two contradictories. It must therefore be the case that the act of creation comes into being without being created.