If, then, a new state can arise for it, that temporal event cannot proceed from a beginningless complete cause—that is, a cause that necessitates its effect by its very essence—as explained above and as is known and agreed upon among rational people. There must nevertheless be something that brings it into being. If this is something other than Allah, then the same argument applies either to its own coming into being, if it was itself brought into being, or to its beginning to produce that event after not having done so. If it is Allah Most High, He cannot necessitate that event by His very essence, since what is beginningless cannot necessitate a temporal event by its very essence, as has been explained. The existence of such a beginningless cause is therefore impossible. If the Maker does not necessitate His effects by His very essence—and thus is not a complete cause—nothing in the world can be beginningless, since nothing can be beginningless except through a complete cause.

If it is said that no new state can arise for what is postulated to be beginningless and an effect of the First, then, besides being a position that no rational person has held, this is false for several reasons:

First: Relations and correlations newly arise for the Necessary Existent, as rational people agree. All the more, then, can they arise for anything other than Him.

Second: Temporal events are witnessed in both the upper and lower worlds. These events proceed from Allah, either through intermediaries or without intermediaries. If they proceed through intermediaries, then things have arisen from those intermediaries after not having existed. It follows that new states must arise for what is beginningless, whether it is the Maker Himself or the Maker’s intermediaries.