Thus, what Abū al-Hasan stated concerning the condition of the sperm-drop and the changes, transformations, and effects it undergoes demonstrates that it—and all other bodies—is originated. For all other bodies resemble the sperm-drop in the activity, effects, transformation, and change cited as evidence of its origination.”

He said:

“This method of arguing for the origination of bodies is the one relied upon in this matter.”

[Ibn Taymiyyah’s Commentary]

I say:

This judge is foremost among his peers. Yet this is as far as his argument goes on this question, which they regard as the foundation of religion and have made the basis for rejecting both the prophetic texts that conflict with it and the doctrines of the eternalists that conflict with it.

Their opponents among the leading scholars of the Sunnah and the leading philosophers say to them:

“What you have presented is nothing but an assertion founded on a failure to grasp the point at issue. For you say: ‘Past events must either have existed from a beginning, or include some that have existed without a beginning.’

“The answer is that ‘past events’ may refer to each particular event, or to events as a kind, occurring successively, one after another.

“If each and every individual event is intended, none of them is eternal; rather, each comes into existence after not having existed.