an effective cause without requiring that it arise anew, we know that need and dependence do not hinge upon arising anew. This is what was to be proved.” (1)

It may be said:

It is astonishing—indeed, it is among the greatest calamities—that nonsense such as this should be made a proof for this (2) doctrine, which in reality holds that Allah created nothing and that temporal events instead come into being without a creator, and should be used to invalidate the religions of [the adherents of] (3) the various creeds and of all rational people, past and present. Yet because these (4) false arguments and others like them have come to bar many eminent, intelligent, and learned people from the pure truth that accords with sound reason and authentic revelation—indeed, they drive their proponents entirely beyond the bounds of reason and religion, as a hair slips free of dough, whether through denial and rejection or through doubt and misgiving—we have had to demonstrate their invalidity, given the need to strive against their proponents, and to expose their corruption at its very root (5). For none but the Most Merciful can fully comprehend the harm they do to minds and religions.

The answer may be given in several ways:

First, it may be said: Only a few lines ago, you stated that nonexistence is pure negation and therefore needs no effective cause whatsoever. You made this a premise in the preceding argument. How, then, can you state only a few lines later that the nonexistence of a possible entity can only be due to a necessitating cause?