what is meant is that He is a complete, eternal cause that necessarily entails (1) its eternal effect, such that something in the world—the celestial sphere or anything else—would be coeternal with Him and necessarily concomitant with His essence from pre-eternity to eternity, then this too is false.*) (2)

Thus, if “one who necessitates by virtue of His essence” is interpreted in a way that entails the eternity of anything in the world alongside Allah, or in a way that entails denying (3) Allah the attributes of perfection, it is false. But if it is interpreted to mean that whatever He wills comes to pass and whatever He does not will does not come to pass, then it is true. Whatever He wills to exist must necessarily exist by His power and will. This, however, does not entail that in pre-eternity He willed any particular created thing. Indeed, His willing a particular thing in pre-eternity is impossible for a number of reasons.

For this reason, rational people generally hold that what is eternal cannot be an object of will or power. Nor do I know of any disagreement among speculative thinkers that any attribute of the Lord which is eternal and necessarily inherent in His essence, with no part of it occurring later, cannot be an object of will or power; and that whatever is an object of will and power can only be originated, one thing after another—even if its kind has always existed, or if its entire kind originated after having not existed.

For this reason, those who believed that the Quran is eternal and necessarily inherent in Allah’s essence agreed that He did not speak by His will and power (4). Rather, what occurs by His will and power (5) is His creation within the servant of an apprehension of that eternal meaning. And those who said, “His speech is eternal,” meaning that it is