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The arguments advanced by the philosophers and speculative theologians concerning “the temporal origination of the world” support only the position of the early Muslim generations and the imams. As for the “philosophers,” their argument establishes only that He has always acted, just as the argument of the “Ash'arīs” establishes only that He has always spoken. Both groups argue for the beginningless existence of the particular entity in question using evidence that does not entail this conclusion.

As for the “speculative theologians,” their principal argument is that whatever is never free of temporal events has a beginning, or that whatever does not precede temporal events has a beginning. Each of these propositions is correct when understood in a particular sense and points to the truth. Whatever does not precede bounded temporal events that have a beginning must itself have a beginning. This is evident to sound reason and agreed upon by rational people. Thus, anything known to have existed after an event that has a beginning, or alongside an event that has a beginning, necessarily also has a beginning. The same applies to whatever is never free of these temporal events.

Furthermore, whatever is never free of temporal events while depending upon them has a beginning. Whatever is never free of temporal events brought about within it by something else has a beginning. Indeed, whatever depends upon temporal events in any way has a beginning. Whatever has events brought about by something else subsisting in it has a beginning. Whatever depends upon something other than itself has a beginning. And whatever has temporal events subsisting in it has a beginning.