contradicting the necessary, innate rational knowledge upon which rational people agree in both instances of misleading argumentation, while some of their assertions also contradict the Scriptures and the messengers on each of the two questions: “the temporal origination of bodies” and “Allah’s exaltedness above His creation.”

All this assumes that no philosopher affirms direction and no Muslim holds that some bodies are eternal. This is all the more evident, then, when one who affirms direction can offer the response set out in the following:

The eighth argument

He may say: The most that the argument of those who hold the world to be eternal obliges me to accept is that some bodies are eternal. No rational person has ever held that all bodies are eternal. Nor does this argument disprove the creation of the heavens and the earth. It establishes—if it establishes anything at all—only the eternity of something that is a body or necessarily entails a body. This is something I can accept. For it is well known that many groups among Muslims and the adherents of other religions do not hold that every body originated in time, since by “body” they mean that which subsists in itself, that which exists, or that which possesses attributes. To maintain that all such things originated in time therefore entails that everything that exists, possesses attributes, or subsists in itself originated in time. This would entail that Allah Most High originated in time.

These people say to their opponents in debate: We can demonstrate that to maintain the temporal origination of everything encompassed by what you call a body entails the temporal origination of the Creator, Most High. And we can demonstrate that your statement, “Allah Most High is not a body,” entails the temporal origination of the Creator more conclusively than you can demonstrate that affirming that He is a body entails