Darʾ Taʿâroud al-ʿAql wa-n-Naql - Ibn Taimiya - (9/72)

For the agent must stand in a relation to its effect, and they do not concede this, since one of their principles is that whatever is concurrent with something that comes into existence must itself come into existence.

I say:

Among the principles they inherited from the Mu‘tazila is that whatever does not precede things that come into existence must itself come into existence. This is agreed upon among rational people, except when what is meant is an individual thing that comes into existence. For whatever does not precede a particular thing that comes into existence must itself come into existence. As for whatever does not precede such things as a kind, this is disputed, and it is upon this that the present argument rests.

Many people fail here to distinguish between something that itself comes into existence and something whose individual instances come into existence while the kind has always existed. Thus, many practitioners of speculative theology, upon observing that movements or other accidents come into existence, believe that whatever does not precede them must itself come into existence. They fail to distinguish between what does not precede a particular thing that comes into existence and what does not precede a perpetual kind whose individual instances come into existence. A thing may therefore not precede the kind, even though it precedes each and every one of its individual instances.

When many practitioners of speculative theology became aware of this distinction, they sought to establish the impossibility of an infinite succession of things coming into existence by the method of correspondence and similar methods, as has been discussed elsewhere.

Thus, they do not concede that a beginningless succession of things coming into existence can proceed from an eternal agent, yet they concede that a particular act that comes into existence can proceed from an eternal agent.

He says:

The existence of something that comes into being must depend upon an act that comes into being; that act, in turn, depends upon an act that comes into being. There would thus proceed from an eternal agent an activity whose individual instances come into existence while its kind is perpetual.

Thus he says:

It is impossible for there to exist

فإن المفعول لا بد أن يتعلق به الفاعل، وهم لا يسلمون ذلك، فإن من أصولهم أن المقارن للحادث حادث. قلت: من أصولهم التي تلقوها عن المعتزلة أن ما لا يسبق الحوادث فهو حادث، وهذا متفق عليه بين العقلاء إلا إذا أريد به الحادث بالشخص، فإن ما لا يسبق الحادث المعين يجب أن يكون حادثاً، وأما ما لا يسبق نوع الحادث فهو محل النزاع بين الناس وعليه ينبني هذا الدليل. وكثير من الناس لايميز في هذا المقام بين ما هو بعينه حادث، وما تكون آحاد نوعه حادثة والنوع لم يزل، حتى أن كثيراً من أهل الكلام إذا رأوا أن الحركات حادثة، أو غيرها من الأعراض، اعتقدوا أن ما لا يسبق ذلك فهو حادث، ولم يميزوا بين ما لا يسبق الحادث المعين، وما لا يسبق النوع الدائم الذي آحاده حادثة، فهو لا يسبق النوع وإن سبق كل واحد واحد من آحاده. ولما تفطن كثير من أهل الكلام للفرق، أرادوا أن يثبتوا امتناع حوادث لا تتناهى بطريق التطبيق وما يشبهه، كما قد ذكر ذلك في موضعه. فهم لايسلمون وجود حوادث لا أول لها عن فاعل قديم، ويسلمون وجود فعل حادث العين عن فاعل قديم. وهو يقول: الحادث يجب أن يكون وجوده متعلقاً بفعل حادث، ثم ذلك الحادث متعلق بفعل حادث، فيكون فعل حادث الأفراد دائم النوع عن فاعل قديم. فهو يقول: لا يمكن وجود