For this reason, it is known by the innate disposition that every made thing must have a maker, as Allah Most High says:

“Or were they created by nothing, or are they the creators?”

That is: Were they created without a creator who created them, or did they create themselves? Some speculative theologians have sought to establish this proposition through analogy and illustrative examples. It can indeed be established by argument, and the proofs for it are numerous. Yet the sound innate disposition affirms it more firmly, finds it more self-evident, and is more compelled to acknowledge it than the example used to establish it by analogy.

Scholars of legal theory have differed concerning the effective cause of a legal ruling: may an affirmative ruling be grounded in the absence of an attribute, while they maintain that a negative ruling may be grounded in an absence? Some allow this, while others reject it. Others distinguish between the two forms of analogy: an absence cannot be a cause of existence in a causal analogy, but may serve as its cause in an evidential analogy, without the effect being attributed to it in the latter.

This settles the matter: in an evidential analogy, an absence may serve as a cause and as part of a cause, because the absence of an attribute may indicate an existent attribute that entails the ruling. In a “causal analogy,” however, an absence cannot constitute a complete cause. It may nevertheless be part of the complete cause and a condition for the impelling cause, which is not complete. We have said, “Part of the complete cause”; this is what it means for it to be a condition for an existent cause to produce its effect.