al-Urmawī to them—the following counterargument:

“If motion’s impossibility in beginningless eternity is intrinsic to it, motion must never exist at all. If its impossibility is due to something else, then, if that impediment exists necessarily by virtue of itself, the same conclusion follows. If it exists necessarily by virtue of something else, the same argument applies to that other thing, leading to an infinite regress, or else the chain ends with that which necessarily exists by virtue of itself. The impediment could then never cease.

“If you say: The impediment is what is meant by ‘beginningless eternity’, since this is incompatible with being preceded by something else, which motion entails; and this impediment ceases in the everlasting future.

“I reply: The aforementioned alternatives apply equally to what is meant by ‘beginningless eternity’: is it necessary by virtue of itself or by virtue of something else?”

Al-Rāzī answered this counterargument as follows:

“His statement: ‘The possibility of motion is beginningless.’ We reply: The beginninglessness of possibility does not entail the possibility of beginninglessness.”

I say: One might ask: What do you mean by saying, “The possibility of motion is beginningless”? Do you mean that motion can exist in beginningless eternity? Or do you mean that, in beginningless eternity, it is valid to judge motion possible in the everlasting future?

As for the first: