Aristotle. Some of them, however, are reported to have held that matter is eternal. They may mean its eternity as a kind, rather than the eternity of any particular thing, though some do affirm the eternity of a particular thing.

As for Abū al-Barakāt, he affirms attributes and acts subsisting in His essence. He did not establish any proof for the eternity of anything in the world; he merely refuted the position of those who said that He began to act after not acting.

What his sound rational arguments—and those of all other rational thinkers—actually entail agrees with what the messengers conveyed, rather than contradicting it.

It seems that he was unfamiliar with the intermediate position, just as al-Rāzī and others like him were. Had they known it, it alone would have been conceivable to them. Ibn Sīnā and other eternalist philosophers gained the upper hand over those thinkers only because the latter agreed with them in denying the attributes.

This is why Ibn Sīnā mentions only the position of his fellow philosophers and that of those speculative theologians. Yet it is well known that the falsity of one of two positions does not entail the truth of the other unless those two exhaust all the possibilities. If, however, there may be a third position that is true, the falsity of one of the two does not entail the truth of the other.

This is the substance of what he presents throughout his books, and of what all these other philosophers present.

[Ibn Sīnā’s Words in al-Ishārāt and Ibn Taymiyyah’s Commentary on Them]

A summary of this appears in al-Ishārāt, which serves as the scripture of these philosophers. He says:

“Misconceptions and Admonitions.

Some people say: ‘This perceptible thing exists through itself and is necessary in itself.’ But if you recall what was said concerning