the future. If they must have a beginning, then events can come into being without forming an infinite regress. Thus, if someone says, “If He acted for a reason that came into being, the explanation of how that reason came into being would be the same as the explanation of how its effect came into being, necessitating an infinite regress,” the answer, on this assumption, is that events must have a beginning. If He performs an act for a wisdom that comes into being, both the act and its wisdom come into being. A reason that comes into being need not itself have another reason that comes into being, unless it is possible for events to have no beginning. If events may have a beginning, this objection falls away; how much more so if both must have a beginning.

If, on the other hand, it is said:

“Events may extend infinitely into the past, just as they extend infinitely into the future according to Muslims, the other religious communities, and the vast majority of humanity. Only certain adherents of innovation have disputed the latter: those who maintain that Paradise and Hell will cease to exist, as al-Jahm ibn Safwān maintains, or that the movements of the people of Paradise will cease, as Abū al-Hudhayl maintains. These two held that events, as a kind, must have an end, just as, in their view, they must have a beginning. Most of those who agreed with them that events must have a beginning disagreed with them about their having an end, saying that they have a beginning but no end. A third group said that they have neither a beginning nor an end. These three positions are well known among Muslim groups.”

The point here is that an answer is available on either assumption. Whoever allows that events may extend infinitely into the past allows an infinite regress of events and says: “This is an infinite regress of effects and conditions, not an infinite regress of causes and agents that produce effects. It is only the latter that is impossible, not the former.”