at any belief concerning the Maker at all.”

Ibn Rushd said:

“This conclusion follows with unquestionable necessity for anyone who adopts the method of the necessary existent to establish an existent that is not a body. The ancients did not follow this method; rather, the first to follow it—as far as we know—was Ibn Sīnā. He said that it was superior to the method of the ancients, for the ancients established the existence of an incorporeal principle of all things only by reasoning from things posterior to it, namely motion and time.

“This method, he claimed, leads to that conclusion—that is, to establishing a principle possessing the attributes affirmed by the ancients—by considering the nature of being as being. Had it led to that conclusion, his claim would have been correct; but it does not.”

For if an existent necessary in itself is posited, the most that can be ruled out concerning it is that it is composed of matter and form or, more generally, that it has any part. Thus, if an existent is posited that is composed of eternal parts whose nature allows them to be joined to one another—as is the case with the world and its parts—it would be true of the world—or of its parts—that it is a necessary existent.”