so its agent must necessitate it and thereby be an eternal necessitating cause. For if the agent did not necessitate it, but both its existence and its nonexistence were possible—while from itself(1) it has nothing but nonexistence—then it would necessarily be nonexistent. When nonexistence is necessary, its existence is impossible, let alone its being beginningless. Thus, whatever neither exists in itself nor is beginningless in itself would necessarily be nonexistent if, from eternity, there were nothing necessitating its existence. For whenever the complete cause exists, the effect must exist; and if the complete cause does not exist, the effect must be nonexistent.

If it is said, “Producing the effect is more fitting for it, even though it remains possible for it not to produce the effect,” the reply is: This premise is false, as previously explained, although you concede its soundness. Moreover, those who claimed it to be sound did not uphold your false doctrine. No one, therefore, has ever combined these two false doctrines.

We are engaged here in presenting a demonstration. If you say:

“We advance this only to force a consequence upon those among the Jabriyya and Qadariyya who hold this view and who allow a freely choosing agent to determine one alternative without a complete determinant necessitating the act. We therefore say to them: Why do you not maintain that the Lord is a freely choosing agent and that, despite this(2), His act is inseparable from Him?”

It will be said to you(3): These people maintain that a beginningless act is intrinsically impossible, even on the supposition that the agent does not act by choice—so how much more so when the agent acts by choice?

It is therefore known that the act of a freely choosing agent cannot be coexistent with Him.

They also say:

“No determination of one alternative over another is intelligible except in conjunction with temporal origination.”

And they say:

“One cannot conceive of a contingent thing’s existence being determined rather than its nonexistence unless it originates in time. As for something that is merely contingent without originating in time(4), it cannot intelligibly be an effect.”

Rather, they say:

“This is known”