any temporal delay whatsoever, whether the cause and effect are contiguous or separate—as they claim regarding the act of the Lord of the worlds, the Creator and Sovereign of all things: that the heavens have always existed with Him, coinciding with Him in time; that the time of their existence is the very time of His existence; and that He cannot precede them by any span of time whatsoever.

As for his statement that knowledge is the cause of the state of being knowing, this is, first of all, the view of those who affirm states, such as al-Qādī Abū Bakr and al-Qādī Abū Ya‘lā (1), and, before them, Abū Hāshim. The majority of speculative theologians, however, maintain that knowledge is itself the state of being knowing, and this is correct. Even according to the former view, they do not say that knowledge here is an efficient cause—whether through will, through its essence, or in any other way. Rather, the effect, in their view, is not characterized as existent at all; by “cause” they mean entailment, and there is no dispute about that.

[The Ninth Proof and the Response to It]

Al-Rāzī said:

(The ninth proof is that, when a thing’s existence is considered insofar as it exists, it is necessarily existent, since it cannot be nonexistent while existing (2). Likewise, while nonexistent, it is necessarily nonexistent, since it cannot be existent while nonexistent (3). Origination consists in these two states occurring in succession. Thus, if the quiddity (4) [in both states] (5)