For this reason, they said:

“No event occurs except through a newly arising cause. If an event were to proceed from the Beginningless One, it would require a newly arising cause. The same reasoning applies to the second as to the first, so it follows that nothing could occur.”

Yet this very consequence follows from their position concerning every event: it cannot occur until another event occurs to complete its efficient cause, and that event cannot occur until another event occurs simultaneously with it. It therefore follows that nothing could occur.

The theologians said:

“An agent endowed with power acts without a newly arising cause.”

They replied:

“This is impossible.”

Yet they themselves maintained that all events occur without a newly arising cause or an agent bringing them into being. Their position was thus even more untenable.

[The second point]

Events without a beginning are possible only in a single beginningless being. If two beginningless beings are posited, each having an infinite succession of events subsisting in it—as they maintain concerning the celestial spheres—this is impossible.

For the motions of each would have neither beginning nor end, yet one would have more motions than the other. Whatever exceeds something else makes that other less than itself. It would therefore follow that what has neither beginning nor end could be increased, and that something else could exceed it. This is impossible, just as its equivalent is impossible with spatial dimensions.

(The third point)

Their position entails that the agent’s act accompanies the agent eternally, without beginning or end, and that what is eternal and beginningless is a contingent effect, admitting of both existence and nonexistence. The falsity of this is known through clear reason and the agreement of rational people.

Ibn Rushd’s Reply to al-Ghazālī and Ibn Taymiyyah’s Commentary

Ibn Rushd raised objections against Abū Hāmid on this matter, some of which fall under the category of