as they use these arguments to contend that it is impossible to bring everything into existence after nonexistence, and insist that matter must be eternal, and likewise duration. They also maintain that an act cannot come into being without power, will, knowledge, or some other cause of action coming into being.

These are the arguments of the eternalist Peripatetic philosophers who profess allegiance to their First Teacher, Aristotle. Some of his admirers, however, claim that he did not maintain the eternity of the world, but merely spoke in ambiguous terms about it. Such was the claim of one of the Jewish philosophers when combining and reconciling his philosophy with the religion with which Allah sent the Messengers.

The purpose here is to understand the origin of this discourse and to recognize that