to the angels, to Moses, and to His creation on the Day of Resurrection would amount to nothing more than creating in them a perception (1) of that which, being eternal, has always existed. It is well known that the revealed texts indicate the contrary.

Nor do we say that He became one who speaks after not having been one, for this would describe Him (2) as possessing perfection after deficiency and as having become a locus for newly occurring things through which He became perfect after having been deficient. Moreover, the origination of that perfection (3) must have a cause. [The same must be said of the second as of the first; thus, this entails the arising of (* a perfection without a cause] (4), as well as a description of Him as perpetually deficient from pre-eternity until something arose for Him for whose arising (5) there was no cause. This strips Him of the attributes of perfection.

As for the continuous occurrence of events, what this means [here] (6) is His always being one who speaks (7) whenever He wills. This is the perpetuity of His perfection and His attributes *) (8) of majesty, as well as the perpetuity of His acts. On this basis, the world can come into being; everything within it is created by Him and originated (9) after not having existed. This is because the cause of origination is what subsists in Him—such as His words, His acts (10), and other things. It is thus intelligible