The biographer of Al-Ash‘ari, Ibn ‘Asakir (d. 571 A.H.), reports that Al-Ash‘ari wrote a treatise called Kitab al-Fusul, in refutation of the Materialists and the ‘philosophers,’ who professed the eternity of the universe, which as far as I am aware, is the earliest scholastic treatise dealing with the question of eternity in a systematic way, our sources record.

Despite the statement of Al-Shahrastani that Al-Ash‘ari preferred the negative method of refutation (al-ibtal), as distinct from the method of positive proof, it is reasonable to assume that like Ibn Hazm, Al-Razi and others, he coupled the former with the latter species of argument.

Ibn Hazm’s first proof of the temporality of the universe rests on the premise that the accidents and substances composing the universe are finite and that time, which he conceives as consisting of transient moments, is finite also.

In proving the finitude of these three terms: accident, substance and time, Ibn Hazm does not resort to the traditional method of the Mutakallims already mentioned, but maintains that the finitude of substance is evident from the finitude of its dimensions, that of accidents from the finitude of substances in which they inhere and the finitude of time from the transitoriness of the moments composing it. The second proof involves the Aristotelian dictum that everything in act is finite. The universe exists in act and is numerically determinate, therefore it is finite.

In the third argument he resorts to the process of reductio ad absurdum. The thesis of an infinite time, which the eternity of the universe, implies, involves the following absurdities:

(a) Since infinity cannot be increased, all the time that will elapse would add nothing to the time elapsed hitherto.

(b) The revolutions of a planet (e.g. Saturn) which revolves once every thirty years would be equal to the revolutions of the Upper Heaven, which amount to some 11,000 revolutions during the same period since one infinity is not greater than another.

(c) The time elapsed since the beginning of time till the Hijrah (622 A.D.) and the time elapsed since the beginning till our day would be equal.

In the fourth and fifth arguments, he argues that, were the universe without beginning and without end, it would be impossible to determine it in number or in nature and consequently we could not speak of first, second, or third, in speaking of existing things.

But this is contradicted by the fact that we can number things and refer to the first and last things. Hence the universe must have a beginning (awwal).

We cannot dwell longer on Ibn Hazm’s discussion of this cardinal theme and the manner in which he resolves the many objections to his arguments. But it is worth noting that most of the arguments of the later doctors such as Al-Ghazali and Al-Razi (d. 1209) are found here in an embryonic, though sometimes confused, state.

This circumstance would appear to strengthen the view expressed by Maimonides (d. 1204), the great Jewish philosopher, that the Mutakallims were influenced in these arguments by John Philoponus (d. 568), author of De aeternitate mundi, a refutation of Proclus’s argument for the eternity of the universe – since it would imply that the Mutakallims from Ibn Hazm downwards were drawing on some common source.

With the temporality of the world as a premise, the Mutakallims proceeded to prove that the world being created (hadith) must necessarily have a Creator (muhdith), by recourse to the so-called “principle of determination.” In its barest form, this principle meant that since prior to the existence of the universe it was equally possible for it to be or not-to-be, a determinant (murajjih) whereby the possibility of a being could prevail over the possibility of not-being was required; and this ‘determinant’ – they argued – was God.

Related Posts

• Al-Ash‘ari
• Al-Razi
• Al-Shahrastani
• Ibn Hazm
• The Existence of God
• the temporality of the universe
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