Accordingly, it may be said:

Its existence is evidence of its dependence upon its Creator(1); its prior nonexistence is evidence of its dependence upon the Creator(2); and its being existent by virtue of nonexistence being absent is evidence of its dependence upon the Creator. Thus, there is no conflict between these formulations. On this basis, his statement is unsound:

(“Nonexistence is pure negation and therefore has no need whatsoever of an efficient cause.”)

This is because(3), [when](4) we take its nonexistence as evidence that it(5) cannot come into existence after nonexistence except through an agent, this does not make its nonexistence itself something in need of an efficient cause. Rather, the Muslim rational theologians maintain that a contingent thing needs an efficient cause only for its existence; as for its continuing nonexistence, it needs no efficient cause for that.

These philosophers(6), however, such as Ibn Sīnā, [and those who followed him], such as al-Rāzī(7), maintain that neither of the two alternatives for a contingent thing can prevail over the other except through a determining factor. They therefore say that its nonexistence cannot prevail over its existence except through a determining factor, just as they say that its existence cannot prevail over its nonexistence except through a determining factor. They then say: “The determining factor for nonexistence is the absence of a determining factor; thus, the cause of its being nonexistent is the absence of the cause of its being existent.”

The Muslim rational theologians emphatically reject this, as was stated by