a temporally arising one—and their position would be invalid (1). If that is not admissible, their position is likewise invalid. Thus, the position of these eternalist philosophers is shown to be false on either of the two contradictory assumptions, which entails that it is false in actual fact.

When a person traverses a distance and his traversing of its second segment is conditional upon traversing the first, then, once he has traversed the first, certain things arise in him—such as ability, will, or something else (2) [subsisting in his essence] (3)—by which he has come (4) to be in the second segment. It is not through the mere (5) cessation of the first that he comes to traverse the second.

If they liken His bringing temporal events into existence to this, they are committed to states arising anew in Allah and subsisting in Him whenever He brings temporal events into existence. Otherwise, if (6) no state arose anew in Him, and there came into existence [the second temporal event merely through] the cessation of the first (7), then His state before and after is the same. Singling out one of the two times for bringing it into existence must therefore have a specifying factor, and the very arising of temporal events must have an agent. Yet the supposition is that He remains in one and the same state from eternity past to eternity future. Under this supposition, it is impossible for one time rather than another to be singled out for anything, or—