[The Response of the Asharites and Those Who Agreed with Them to the Muʿtazilites and the Shia]

These theologians said to the Muʿtazilites and the Shia (1): Since this proof is your mainstay, the eternalist philosophers, such as Ibn Sīnā and his ilk, have gained the upper hand over you. In reality, this proof contradicts the temporal origination of the universe rather than entailing it. For if this temporal event must have a temporally originated cause, while this proof entails that a temporal event comes about without a cause, it necessarily follows that Allah has brought nothing into existence. And if we allow one of the two alternatives open to a contingent thing to be selected without a determinant, then the path by which you sought to prove the Creator is blocked.

They also said to the Muʿtazilites and the Shia (2): Despite this, you have made Allah’s acts dependent on temporally originated causes (3). You are therefore asked: Do you require temporal events to have a temporally originated cause or not?

If you say, “Yes,” an infinite regress of temporal events follows, invalidating what you have stated.

But if you do not require this, you are told: Likewise, there need be no subsequent, temporally originated purpose for them. For reason recognizes that the act of an agent who brings something into existence must have both a cause and a purpose.

If you say, “There is no cause for its being brought into existence,” you are told: “Nor is there any purpose sought through the act.”

If you say, “No agent who does not intend a wise purpose can be conceived except as acting in vain” (4), you are told: “Neither can we conceive of an agent bringing something into existence without any temporally originated cause whatsoever. Indeed, this is even more rationally impossible than the former. Why, then, have you affirmed the purpose while denying the temporally originated cause?”