They also claimed that no one knows, through observation or self-evident reason, that other concrete entities come into being; rather, this can only be known by reasoning as they did. They said:

“These are temporally originated accidents inhering in atoms, and those atoms have never been free of accidents, since atoms cannot be devoid of accidents.”

They then said:

“Whatever is never free of temporally originated events is itself temporally originated.”

They based this on the premise that bodies consist of individual, indivisible atoms. They also said that bodies cannot be transformed into one another.

The majority of rational people among the early generations and the various classes of scholars, as well as most speculative thinkers, disagree with their affirmation of indivisible atoms. They affirm that bodies can be transformed into one another and maintain that the Lord continually brings concrete entities into being, as the Quran indicates.

Thus, this method is invalid both rationally and according to revelation; indeed, it obstinately defies reason. For it is self-evident to everyone that man is created and originated, coming into existence after not having existed. Everyone knows that he came into being in his mother’s womb after not having existed, and that his very being came into existence. As the Exalted says:

“I created you before, when you were nothing.”

And the Exalted says:

“Does man not remember that We created him before, when he was nothing?”