obliged, in addition,(1) to say that His effect is eternal and that He selected it without any determining factor. For he would say: “Indeed,(2) this position is false. If my other position is also false, I will not combine two false positions. If it is true, then stating the truth does not require me(3) to state what is false. Truth does not entail falsehood, though falsehood may entail truth, and this does not harm [the truth].(4) Whenever that which entails something obtains, what it entails also obtains. Thus, the truth remains established whether the falsehood is assumed to exist or not. Falsehood, however, cannot be entailed by the truth, for whatever the truth entails is true, and falsehood cannot be true. Therefore, one who states the truth is not required to state what is false. This is evident.

The point here is that, once it is held that temporally originated events may arise(5) without(6) a temporally arising cause, it becomes possible for an agent to bring about such events after not having acted, without any temporally arising cause. This is maintained by various schools of speculative thinkers—Muslim theologians and others—including the Qadarites, the Jabrites, and others. If this is possible in reality, it is not necessary for the agent always to have been acting. It would also be possible for time, matter, and other things to have a temporal beginning, as is maintained by those speculative thinkers among the theologians and philosophers who hold this view. If this is possible, every argument advanced for the eternity of any part of the world is invalidated, and the doctrine of the world’s eternity is thereby invalidated. It would also become known that its eternity is impossible, since it cannot be—