some of them, who interpreted His words—“I do not love those that set” (al-An‘ām: 76)—as meaning “those that change.” Others sometimes said “those that move” or “those that pass from one place to another.” Some later philosophers said “those whose existence is possible,” intending “possible” to include whatever is eternal and beginningless, whose nonexistence is impossible.
Some of them, such as al-Rāzī in his Quran commentary, claimed that this was the view of the exacting scholars. These people are among the worst distorters of the terms “setting” and “possibility.” They, along with all other rational people, acknowledge that whatever is possible—capable of existence and nonexistence—can only be something that was previously nonexistent. As for what is eternal and beginningless, having always existed, they and all other rational people regard it as impossible for it to be possible in the sense of being capable of existence and nonexistence.
Yet they plainly contradict themselves, saying: “The celestial sphere is possible, capable of existence and nonexistence, yet it is eternal and beginningless.”
Furthermore, applying the term “setting” to whatever is possible and capable of existence and nonexistence is among the grossest falsifications of language and Quranic interpretation. Existing creatures—such as the sun, the moon, the stars, human beings, and others—are not described as “setting” while they remain present.
These people ventured to do this after the Jahmiyyah, the speculative theologians, described a moving thing that had come into existence as something that “sets.” They thus classified everything that moves as something that sets, claiming that Abraham, peace be upon him, had argued from motion that whatever moves cannot be the Lord of the worlds. Once these people had said this, those others declared: “We classify everything other than the Lord as something that sets.” They therefore described the heavens, the earth, and everything other than Him as “setting,” and interpreted the Quran accordingly.