beginning, is the genus of occurrences. Thus, the genus of their existence is beginningless, and the nonexistence of each individual occurrence is beginningless. There is no incompatibility between the two unless the necessity of a beginning is established—which is precisely the point in dispute.

[One theologian’s presentation of the argument in another form]

This also makes clear the answer to what some have said in formulating this argument. When one of them saw the objections raised against al-Rāzī’s presentation, he reformulated the argument as follows:

“The claim that each individual motion is preceded by another, without any first motion, entails an impossibility and is therefore impossible.

“To demonstrate the first claim: Each motion, insofar as it comes into being, must be preceded by beginningless nonexistence, since every occurrence is preceded by beginningless nonexistence. This entails that those nonexistences are together in beginningless eternity. Yet insofar as no genus can be posited without an individual instance of those motions necessarily existing, it entails that those nonexistences are not together in beginningless eternity. Otherwise, what precedes would coincide with what is preceded. Undoubtedly, their being together in beginningless eternity and their not being together in it are contradictory. Whatever entails this is therefore impossible.”

One may reply to whoever advances this argument:

If you treat the beginningless nonexistence preceding each occurrence as something subsisting in beginningless eternity, distinct from the nonexistence of another occurrence, this is not conceded. For beginningless nonexistence admits no distinctions whatsoever, nor can it be conceived in a way that allows one to say: “There are nonexistences there.” Rather, when an occurrence comes into being, it is known that its nonexistence—which falls within that kind encompassing them all—has come to an end. The way the genus of existents encompasses them is not