saying:

“Temporal events may occur without a newly arising cause, because the [agent] possessed of power and choice (1) prefers one of two possible acts to the other without any determining factor. Despite this, the world may be beginningless, since the choosing agent may have preferred its beginninglessness without any determining factor.”

Because the falsity of this position is manifest, no rational thinker, so far as we know, has ever maintained it. It rests upon two premises, each of which is false in the judgment (2) of reason. Although some rational thinkers have adopted one of them (3), no one is known to have adopted both together (4).

The first is that an agent possessed of choice gives preference without a cause. Most rational thinkers maintain that the falsity of this is known with self-evident necessity, or that [it is] (5) certain though not self-evident.

The second is that the act of an agent possessed of power and choice is concomitant with the agent, who does not bring about one thing after another. Rational thinkers—or most of them—likewise maintain that the falsity of this is known with self-evident necessity, or at least with certainty. Indeed, most rational thinkers hold that an agent’s effect is never concomitant with the agent.

[Point of connection between the excursus on the world’s beginninglessness and the discussion of the problem of predestination]

Among speculative thinkers, some adopted one of the two premises but not the other. The Qadariyya and some of the Jahmiyya adopt the first, while some of the Jabriyya adopt the first with respect to the Lord but not the servant. As for the second, it was maintained only by one who regarded the agent as willing, or who regarded (6) part of the world as beginningless, such as Abū al-Barakāt and those like him.