{We certainly created you, then fashioned you, then said to the angels, “Prostrate yourselves before Adam.”}
[Surah al-Aʿrāf: 11]
and His words:
{We certainly created man from an extract of clay. Then We placed him as a sperm-drop in a secure resting place. Then We developed the sperm-drop into a clinging clot, then developed the clot into a lump of flesh, then developed the lump into bones, then clothed the bones with flesh; then We brought him forth as another creation. Blessed is Allah, the best of creators.}
[Surah al-Muʾminūn: 12–14]
and similar passages.
These people accept that volitional matters subsist in Him, such as His creating, His pleasure, His anger, His speech, and the other matters established by the revealed texts. The Quran contains more than 300 passages that accord with their position. As for the hadiths, they are exceedingly numerous, and reports from the Salaf to this effect are mass-transmitted. It is also the position of most of the leading philosophers. These people then hold two views concerning infinite regress.
They say:
A created thing comes into existence through creation, while creation occurs through His power and will and does not require another act of creation.
0 They also say to their opponents:
If, in your view, separate created things may exist through power and will alone, without any act subsisting in Him, then it is all the more fitting that the act itself may occur through power and will alone.
Those among them who do not affirm infinite regress say:
The very eternal power and eternal will necessitated whatever act and volition came into being, and through that the created thing comes into existence thereafter.
Those among them who affirm infinite regress say:
The impossible infinite regress is only an infinite regress of efficient causes: namely, that an agent should itself have an agent, and so on without end—whether this is expressed by saying that every cause has a cause and every efficient cause has an efficient cause, or by saying that every agent has an agent,