Al-Ṣafadiyyah - Ibn Taimiya - (2/48)

Effectuation directed at a particular entity: were He an eternal, ever-operative agent producing that specific entity, all the concomitants of that entity would necessarily accompany it; not a single one of them could lag behind Him, for the conditioned cannot exist without its necessary concomitant. It would therefore follow that every event existed from pre-eternity.

If it is said, “Those concomitants adhere to the universe one after another,” we reply: then the One who originates them must be bringing them into being one after another. Accordingly, neither the determinate influence upon them, nor upon any one of them, nor upon them in serial order, can be eternal; for whatever comes into existence successively is not eternal except with respect to its kind, as has been explained. What is eternal is only the kind of causation, whereas our discussion concerns a particular entity within the universe; hence no particular entity in the universe is eternal.

This shows that the universe is His effect; and if the act itself unfolds only successively, then the effect does so even more certainly.

Should one posit an eternal effect inseparable from Him, one must likewise posit, along with it, an eternal act inseparable from Him. Now, if His act with respect to this were eternal and inseparable from Him, while His act with respect to the attendant events occurred sequentially, He would be attributed two acts and two effects that nonetheless remain mutually inseparable: one act and its effect would be pre-eternal, inseparable from Him so that nothing could be subsequent to Him in pre-eternity; the other act would be perpetual, producing things one after another, and nothing could accompany it in pre-eternity.

Yet the supposition is that the one act is concurrent with and inseparable from the other—an attempt to reconcile two mutually exclusive propositions. For if it is postulated that the universe, or some part of it, is eternal and inseparable from Him in pre-eternity, it cannot be subsequent to Him, since it is His effect, the product of an eternal act inseparable from Him; and the world—

التأثير لشيء معين وإذا كان مؤثرا قديما دائما لشيء معين كانت لوازم ذلك المعين معه لا يمكن تأخر شيء منها عنه لامتناع وجود الملزوم بدون اللازم فيلزم وجود الحوادث كلها في الأزل. فإذا قيل: هي تلزم العالم شيئا بعد شيء. قيل: فيجب أن يكون محدثها يحدثها شيئا بعد شيء فلا يكون التأثير المعين فيها ولا في شيء منها ولا في واحد بعد واحد أزليا فإن ما يوجد شيئا بعد شيء لم يكن أزليا إلا باعتبار النوع كما تقدم وإنما يكون الأزلي نوع التأثير والكلام إنما هو في شيء معين من العالم فلا يكون شيء معين من العالم أزليا. يبين هذا أن العالم مفعول له فإذا كان الفعل لا يكون إلا شيئا بعد شيء فالمفعول بطريق الأولى والأحرى. وإذا قدر مفعول قديم لازم له لزم أن يقدر معه فعل قديم لازم له وإذا كان فعل هذا قديما لازم له وفعل الحوادث الملازمة له شيئا بعد شيء كان له فعلان ومفعولان مع تلازمهما أحدهما قديم لازم له في القدم لا يتأخر عنه شيء في الأزل والآخر دائم يحدث شيئا بعد شيء لا يجوز أن يقارنه شيء في الأزل. والتقدير أن أحدهما مقارن للآخر ملازم له وهذا جمع بين المتناقضين فإنه إذا قدر أن العالم أو شيء منه قديم لازم له في الأزل لا يجوز تأخره عنه لكونه معلولا له مفعول الفعل القديم اللازم له والعالم