the world’s coming into existence on the view that bodies are composed of indivisible parts, and that the indivisible part is brought into being through its coming into existence.

The method they followed to establish that the indivisible part—which they call the atom—and, more generally, bodies come into existence is so abstruse that it eludes many who are trained in the art of dialectic, let alone the general public. Moreover, it does not constitute a demonstration, nor does it lead with certainty to the existence of the Creator Most High.

For if we suppose that the world came into existence, it necessarily follows—as they say—that it must have an agent that brought it into existence. Yet we cannot regard this originating agent as either eternal or itself originated. It cannot be originated, because it would then require another originator, and that originator yet another, continuing without end—which is impossible.

Nor can it be eternal, for its action relating to its effects would then have to be eternal, making those effects eternal as well. The existence of something that comes into being must depend upon an act that comes into being—unless, of course, they were to concede that an act that comes into being can proceed from an eternal agent.