“In that case,” inferring from an accident or attribute having come into existence that its substance or bearer has likewise come into existence does not entail that every accident or attribute proves that its substance or bearer came into existence. If that followed, their claim that all substances and bodies came into existence would be invalid, since, on this supposition, the One without beginning would fall within this general category. Indeed, even the claim that any substance or body is contingent would be invalid.

The answer has thus become clear through two approaches.

The first has two aspects: counterargument and holding the opponents to the implications of their position; and demonstrating contradiction and invalidating their argument. These two aspects show that this specious argument is invalid according to the principles of all people on earth, and intrinsically invalid as well. For its truth entails its own negation, and anything whose truth entails its negation is intrinsically false.

The second approach consists in resolving the difficulty and clarifying the matter, as explained above.

As for the second specious argument—the argument concerning “composition,” which is shared by the philosophers and the Muʿtazilites, whereas the first is exclusively Muʿtazilite—the Muʿtazilites regard His most distinctive attribute as His being without beginning, and affirm that everything other than Him came into existence. The philosophers regard His most distinctive attribute as His necessarily existing in His own right, and hold that everything other than Him is contingent. They do not acknowledge coming into existence from nonexistence, and they maintain that the “composition” they describe entails a dependence that precludes His being necessarily existent in His own right.