Those who say that rest is a positive reality maintain that, when motion is absent from a body that is never without either motion or rest, a positively existing state of rest inheres in it. This is the position of those who argue from the alternation of motion and rest that whatever possesses these attributes must have come into being. For those who say that rest is an absence, however, the absence of motion from a subject does not entail the presence of a positively existing state of rest.

Thus, those who hold that motion or originated events can inhere in something after previously not inhering in it, while also holding that a succession of originated events is impossible—as is the position of the Karrāmiyyah and others—say that when motion inheres in it, this does not bring a positively existing state of rest to an end. Rather, in their view, this is analogous to their assertion, shared by the Muʿtazilah, the Ashʿariyyah, and others, that He acts after previously not acting. They do not say that the absence of action is a positive reality. They regard motion in the same way.

Many speculative theologians used to say, “Whatever is never free of originated events must itself have come into being,” or, “Whatever does not precede originated events must itself have come into being,” considering this a self-evident premise. For whatever does not precede something that comes into being must either coincide with it or come after it; whatever coincides with something that comes into being must itself have come into being, as must whatever comes after it.

This statement, however, is ambiguous. If it means that whatever is never free of a particular originated event, or does not precede a particular originated event, must itself have come into being, then it is undoubtedly true and undisputed. The same applies if “what comes into being” means the totality of what has a beginning, or what exists after nonexistence, or something similar. But if “originated events” means things that occur one after another without any first event, and it is then said that whatever is never free of them, or has never been free of them, must itself have come into being, this is neither self-evident nor clear.