[Fourth]

Al-Ghazālī pursued an approach intended to show that the philosophers were incapable of establishing the existence of the Creator. He said, “Your proof rests on denying that causes and effects are finite.” He continued, “Yet you cannot do this while affirming an infinite succession of temporally originated events. Whatever argument you offer for denying that causes have an end applies equally to temporally originated events; and whatever you offer to justify the existence of an infinite succession of temporally originated events commits you to accepting its counterpart regarding causes.”

Although some have objected to this statement of his, it is better than what al-Āmidī did. His aim was to compel them to accept one of two alternatives: either failing to establish the Necessary Existent or acknowledging that the world is temporally originated. He explained that the existence of the Creator is known by establishing the existence of temporally originated events, and that the need of what is temporally originated for an originator is self-evident.

This is better than making the establishment of the Creator’s existence depend on classifying causes as successive or concurrent, and maintaining that an infinite succession of causes cannot be refuted except by treating two things as equally impossible: a particular temporally originated event’s having always existed, and the kind of such events’ having always existed. The needless elaboration involved, and the extent to which this makes knowledge of the Creator depend on such a premise, are plain.

[Fifth]

The most that the proof he mentioned establishes is that temporally originated events