are infinite, though one exceeds the other in duration; yet nothing can be greater than what is infinite.

This demonstrates the falsity of your position, for you say that the motion of the encompassing celestial sphere is greater than the motion belonging to the spheres of the sun, the moon, and others, although both are infinite.

Thus, the argument you have advanced concerning the motion of a single body entails the invalidity of your position concerning the motion of two bodies. As for a single body, your argument rests on its divisibility and the divisibility of its motion, allowing it to be said that a part of it equals the whole in being infinite. But this is impossible. Rather, it is a single motion with neither beginning nor end, and there is nothing impossible about that.”

The speculative theologians may be told:

“If you say that it is preceded by the mover, meaning that motion must have a mover, this too is conceded. But you claim that the mover cannot set anything in motion unless motion is initially impossible for Him, then becomes possible without anything new arising—thus changing from impossibility to possibility without any cause arising at all. You also claim that He cannot bring anything into existence unless He does so without any newly arising cause whatsoever. It is this that the majority of Muslims, as well as others, dispute with you.”

They say to you:

“Allah has always been able to act. Affirming the ability to do something while maintaining that the object of that ability is impossible combines two contradictories. The ability to do something necessarily entails its possibility. Thus, whatever the Lord Most High has the power to do must be possible, not impossible.”

They also say:

“If you say that He was not able to act and then became able, because action was not possible and then became possible, what accounts for this newly arising state and change?”