but not within Allah’s essence, and held that all this occurred at one and the same time. This, then, is their principal argument. Each group that disagreed with them rejected one of its premises. Those who allowed creation to subsist independently or in the created thing rejected those two premises. As for the majority, each answered according to his own position.

Some said:

Rather, creation and bringing into being are beginningless, just as, according to you, will is beginningless. Affirming that will is beginningless does not entail the prior existence of what is willed. Likewise, creation and bringing into being are beginningless without this entailing the prior existence of the created thing.

This objection is binding upon the Kullābiyyah, whether Ashʿarīs or others, and they have no answer to it. It does not, however, bind those who deny that a particular act of willing is beginningless—indeed, deny that will is beginningless, as the Jahmiyyah and Muʿtazilah maintain—or who affirm that will as a kind is beginningless, as maintained by the leading scholars of Ahl al-Hadīth and those philosophers, theologians, and others who agree with them.

But the proponent of this view is told:

This beginningless bringing into being must either occur by His will or not occur by His will. If it occurs without His will, it follows that He created the creation without willing it. If it occurs by His will, it follows that something beginningless is willed, which is false. Were this valid, it would be possible for the world to be beginningless while also being created