And all the arguments the philosophers adduce for the beginninglessness of activity establish only that He has always done whatever He wills. They do not establish the beginninglessness of any particular act or any particular effect—neither the celestial sphere nor anything else.

The error shared by both groups arose from confusing a perpetually existing kind with a particular individual instance. One group then said:

“Motion and action as kinds cannot be beginningless, because a series of events without a beginning is impossible.”

They thus denied that the Lord has always spoken by His will and has always acted by His will. Indeed, their position entails that He was incapable of acting and then became capable, and that He was also incapable of speaking by His will.

Some of them, such as the Karrāmiyyah, say that He became capable of speaking by His will after having been incapable of doing so. Others say that He did not become capable of speech and can never speak by His will. These are the Kullābiyyah and those who agree with them among the Ashʿariyyah and the Sālimiyyah.

As for the “philosophers,” they adopted the position of their leading figure, Aristotle: anyone who says that “motion as a kind” came into existence after not having existed is defying his own reason. They maintained that events as a kind cannot come into existence after not having existed without a newly occurring cause, and that this is known necessarily.

They may be answered as follows:

This establishes that this kind has always existed; it does not establish the beginninglessness of the particular motion of the celestial sphere. The same applies to time and body. Their proofs entail that motion has always existed, together with its measure, which is time, and its agent, which they call body. But they do not entail the beginninglessness of any particular thing.

Thus, if it is said that the Lord of all worlds has always spoken by His will and done whatever He wills, then action as a kind has always existed, as has its measure, which is time. Aristotle and his followers, however, erred in supposing that there is no time except the measure of the celestial sphere’s motion, and that there is no motion above the celestial sphere or prior to it. Thus, on their account, its motion had to be beginningless.