impossible in that case. Your claim that inequality is impossible in what you have supposed to be unequal is therefore rejected. Rather, once inequality is supposed, inequality necessarily follows—but only at the end where they differ; it does not follow at the other end.

Al-Abharī said:

“Even if we concede that they cannot have been moving from eternity, why could they not have been at rest?

“His statement is: ‘The cause of rest must either have come into being or have existed from eternity.’

“We reply: ‘Why do you say that, if it had existed from eternity, rest would necessarily continue forever? Why could its causation of rest not depend upon a beginningless condition of absence? A beginningless absence can cease; when the condition ceases, rest ceases.’”

I say:

One might object: An accident that has existed from eternity can cease only through a newly arising cause. The same argument applies to it as to anything else. Indeed, it ceases only through a newly arising cause, so the cessation of rest requires a cause to arise.

He says:

“The cause necessitating the cessation of rest is like the cause necessitating the world’s coming into being: a will preceded by another will, in a succession with no first member. But this supposition establishes the position that the world came into being.”

The reply is:

If a body has existed from eternity and motion can arise in it, then the cause necessitating its motion would also allow the world to come into being. This, however, invalidates the philosophers’ argument; it does not establish the validity of the argument that a body which has existed from eternity cannot subsequently be set in motion.