And just as it is impossible to have an event exist without a cause...

And just as it is impossible to have an event exist without a cause, it is just as impossible to have a cause delaying an event, when all the conditions that are needed to cause such an event exist and are ready to actualize the event. For such preconditions would necessitate the cause of an event or thing. As applied to God and creation, this means having a willer, the will, and having the relation to what is willed occur, but not having the object of will come into existence.

This would mean that there be change within God, because there would be a difference between states of affairs and being before and after creation, along with the need for these causes to come into existence anew.[^31] Actions coming about through human intention are not delayed unless there is some impediment.

“Once intent and ability are realized, [all] obstacles being removed, the delay of what is intended is not rationally intelligible.” It is only in the case of “resolve” that a delay can be considered, for “resolve is not sufficient for the existence of the act.” Therefore, “if the eternal will belongs to the same category as that of our intention to act, then, unless there is an impediment, neither the delay of what was intended nor the [temporal] priority of the intent are conceivable.” If the eternal will, however, is similar to human resolve, in that resolve cannot be a cause itself, there would then need to be a “renewed intentional upsurge” at the time of action to bring something into existence.

Such arising of a new intent within the Eternal would entail “upholding change in the Eternal.” Furthermore, the question of why such an upsurge of intention would occur at one point in time rather than another continues. Therefore, a necessitating cause with intention to act and no impediment to action, having all conditions for an action fulfilled, would have an action occur.

To say this, and then affirm that this action was delayed, only to come about at some future point with no new upsurge in intention or condition is impossible.[^32] Al-Ghazali retorted by asking how the philosophers can know that the impossibility of the eternal will relates to temporal creation. Is it through “necessity of reason or its theoretical reflection?” Al-Ghazali wondered if the philosophers have an implied middle term between “eternal will” and “temporal creation”?