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| ==The Second Proof==
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| They assert that he who affirms that the world is posterior to God and God prior to the world cannot mean anything but that He is prior not temporally but essentially like the natural priority of one to two, although they can exist together in temporal existence, or like the priority of cause to effect, for instance the priority of the movement of a man to the movement of his shadow which follows him, or the movement of the hand to the movement of the ring, or the movement of the hand in the water to the movement of the water, for all these things are simultaneous, but the one is cause, the other effect, for it is said that the shadow moves through the movement of the man and the water through the hand in the water, and the reverse is not said although they are simultaneous. If this is what you mean by saying that God is prior to the world, then it follows that they must both either be temporal or eternal, for it is absurd that the one should be temporal and the other eternal. If it is meant that God is prior to the world and to time, not essentially, but temporally, then there was, before the existence of the world and of time, a time in which the world was non-existent, since non-existence preceded the world and God preceded it during a long duration which had a final term but no initial one, and then there was before time an infinite time, which is self-contradictory. Therefore the assertion that time had a beginning is absurd. And if time-which is the expression of the measure of movement -is eternal, movement must be eternal. And the necessity of the eternity of movement implies the necessity of the eternity of the thing in motion, through the duration of which time endures.
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| I say:
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| The mode of their reasoning which he reproduces does not constitute a proof. It amounts to saying that the Creator, if He is prior to the world, must either be prior not in time, but in causation, like the priority of a man to his shadow, or prior in time, like a builder to a wall. If He is prior in the same way as the man is prior to his shadow, and if the Creator is eternal, then the world too is eternal. But if He is prior in time, then He must precede the world by a time which has no beginning, and time will be eternal, for if there is a time before the actual, its starting-point cannot be imagined. And if time is eternal, movement too is eternal, for time cannot be understood without motion. And if motion is eternal, the thing in motion will be eternal, and its mover will necessarily be eternal too. But this proof is unsound, for it is not of the nature of the Creator to be in time, whereas it belongs to the nature of the world to be so; and for this very reason it is not true that He is either simultaneous with it or prior to it in time or in causation.
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| <blockquote style="padding: 1em;border: 1px dashed #2f6fab;color: black;background-color: #EFEFEF;">"''Ghazali says
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| <p>
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| The objection to this is: Time is generated and created, and before it there was no time at all. The meaning of our words that God is prior to the world and to time is: He existed without the world and without time, then He existed and with Him there was the world and there was time. And the meaning of our words that He existed without the world is: the existence of the essence of the Creator and the non-existence of the essence of the world, and nothing else. And the meaning of our words that He existed and with Him there was the world is: the existence of the two essences, and nothing else. And the meaning of priority: the uniqueness of His existence, and nothing else. And the world is like a singular person; if we should say, for instance: God existed without Jesus, then He existed with Jesus-these words contain nothing but, first, the existence of an essence and the non-existence of an essence, then, the existence of two essences, and there is no need to assume here a third essence, namely time, although imagination cannot desist from assuming it. But we should not heed the errors of the imagination.</p></blockquote>
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| I say:
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| These words are erroneous and mistaken, for we have already proved that there are two kinds of existence: one in the nature of which there is motion and which cannot be separated from time; the other in the nature of which there is no motion and which is eternal and cannot be described in terms of time. The first is known by the senses and by reason; the existence of the second-in the nature of which there is neither motion nor change-is known by proof to everyone who acknowledges that each motion needs a mover and each effect a cause, and that the causes which move each other do not regress infinitely, but end in a first cause which is absolutely unmoved. And it has also been established that the entity in the nature of which there is no movement is the cause of the entity in the nature of which there is movement. And it has been proved also that the entity in the nature of which there is motion cannot be separated from time, and that the entity in the nature of which there is no movement is entirely free from time. Therefore the priority of the one entity over the other is based neither on a priority in time, nor on the priority of that kind of cause and effect, which belongs to the nature of things in motion, like the priority of a man to his shadow. For this reason anyone who compares the priority of the unmoved being to the thing in motion to the priority existing between two things in motion is in error; since it is only true of each one in pairs of moving things that, when it is brought in relation to the other, it is either simultaneous with it or prior or posterior in time to it. It is the later philosophers of Islam who made this mistake, since they enjoyed but slight comprehension of the doctrine of the ancients. So the priority of this one being to the other is the priority of the unchanging timeless existence to the changing existence which is in time, and this is an altogether different type of priority. It is therefore not true of these existences that they are simultaneous, or that the one precedes the other, and Ghazali’s observation that the priority of the Creator to the world is not a temporal priority is true. But the posteriority of the world to the Creator, since He does not precede the world in time, can only be understood as the posteriority of effect to cause,’ for posteriority and priority are opposites which are necessarily in one genus, as has been shown in the sciences.’ Since therefore this priority is not in time, the posteriority also cannot be in time, and we have the same difficulty all over again: how can the effect be delayed after the cause when the conditions of acting are fulfilled? The philosophers, however, since they do not recognize a beginning in the totality of this existence in moti/n, are not touched by this difficulty, and it is possible for them to indicate in what way the temporal beings proceed from the eternal. One of their proofs that existence in motion has no beginning, and that in its totality it does not start, is that, when it is assumed to start, it is assumed to exist before its existence, for to start is a movement, and movement is of necessity in the thing in motion, equally whether the movement is regarded as taking place in time or at an instants Another proof is that everything that becomes has the potentiality of becoming before it actually becomes, although the theologians deny this (a discussion with them on this point will follow); now potentiality is a necessary attribute of being in motion, and it follows necessarily that, if it were assumed to become, it would exist before its existence. What we have here are only dialectical arguments; they have, however, a much greater plausibility than what the theologians advance.
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| <blockquote style="padding: 1em;border: 1px dashed #2f6fab;color: black;background-color: #EFEFEF;">"''As for Ghazali’s words:
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| <p>
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| If we should say, for instance, that God existed without Jesus, and then He existed with Jesus, these words contain nothing but, first, the existence of an essence and the non-existence of an essence, then, the existence of two essences, and there is no need to assume here a third essence, namely time.</p></blockquote>
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| I say:
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| This is true, provided that Jesus’ posteriority is not regarded as an essential temporal posteriority, but, if there is a posteriority, it is an accidental posteriority, for time precedes this posterior entity, i.e. it is a necessity of Jesus’ existence that time should precede Him and that His existence should have begun, but the world is not subject to such a necessity, except in so far as it is a part of a moving existence beyond which time extends in two directions,’ as happens to Jesus and other transitory individuals.z Nothing of this is proved here; here it is simply explained that the objection is not valid. In addition, what he says afterwards of the proofs of the philosophers is untrue.
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| <blockquote style="padding: 1em;border: 1px dashed #2f6fab;color: black;background-color: #EFEFEF;">"''Answering in the name of the philosophers, Ghazali says:
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| <p>
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| One might say that our expression ‘God existed without the world’ means a third thing, besides the existence of one being and the non-existence of another, because, if we should suppose that in the future God should exist without the world, there would be in the future the existence of one being and the non-existence of another, still it would not be right to say ‘God existed without the world’, but we should say ‘God will exist without the world’, for only of the past do we say ‘God existed without the world’; and between the words ‘existed’ and ‘will exist’ there is a difference, for they cannot replace each other. And if we try to find out where the difference between the two sentences lies, it certainly does not lie in the words ‘existence of one being’ and ‘non-existence of another being’, but in a third entity, for if we say of the non-existence of the world in the future ‘God was without the world’, it will be objected: this is wrong, for ‘was’ refers only to the past. This shows therefore that the word ‘was’ comprises a third entity, namely the past, and the past by itself is time, and through another existent it is movement, for movement passes only through the passing of time. And so it follows necessarily that, before the world, a time finished which terminated in the existence of the world.</p></blockquote>
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| I say:
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| In this in brief he shows that when it is said ‘such-and-such was without such-and-such’ and then ‘such-and-such was with such-and-such’ a third entity is understood, namely time. The word ‘was’ shows this, because of the difference in the meaning of this concept in the past and in the future, for if we assume the existence of one thing with the non-existence of another in the past, we say ‘such a thing existed without such a thing’, but when we assume the non-existence of the one with the existence of the other in the future, we say ‘such a thing will exist without such a thing’, and the change in meaning implies that there is here a third entity. If in our expression ‘such-and-such existed without such-and-such’ the word ‘existed’ did not signify an entity, the word ‘existed’ would not differ from ‘will exist’. All this is self-evident, but it is only unquestionable in relation to the priority and posteriority of things which are by nature in time. Concerning the timeless the word ‘was’ and the like indicate in such a proposition nothing but the copula between predicate and subject, when we say, for example, ‘God was indulgent and compassionate’;’ and the same holds when either predicate or subject is timeless, e.g. when we say ‘God was without the world, then God was with the world’. Therefore for such existents the time-relation to which he refers does not hold. This relation is, however, unquestionably real when we compare the non-existence of the world with its existence, for if the world is in time, the non-existence of the world as to be in time too. And since the non-existence and the existence of the world cannot be in one and the same time, the non-existence must precede; the non-existence must be prior and the world posterior to it, for priority and posteriority in the moving can only be understood in this relation to time. The only flaw in this argument is to assume this relation between God and the world. Only in this point is the argument which Ghazali relates faulty and does it fail to constitute a proof.
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| <blockquote style="padding: 1em;border: 1px dashed #2f6fab;color: black;background-color: #EFEFEF;">"''Then Ghazali gives the theologians’ objection to this argument of the philosophers:’
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| The primitive meaning of the two words is the existence of one thing and the non-existence of another. The third element which is the connexion between the two words is a necessary relation to us. The proof is that, if we should suppose a destruction of the world in the future and afterwards a second existence for us, we should then say ‘God was without the world’, and this would be true, whether we meant its original non-existence or the second non-existence, its destruction after its existence. And a sign that this is a subjective relation is that the future can become past and can be indicated by the word ‘past’.’ All this is the consequence of the inability of our imagination to imagine the beginning of a thing without something preceding it, and this ‘before’ of which the imagination cannot rid itself is regarded as a really existing thing, namely time. This resembles the inability of the imagination to admit a limited body, e.g. overhead, without anything beyond its surface, so that it is imagined that behind the world there is a space either occupied or empty; and when it is said there is above the surface of the world no beyond and no farther extension, this is beyond the grasp of the imagination. Likewise, when it is said that there is no real anterior to the existence of the world, the imagination refuses to believe it. But the imagination may be called false in allowing above the world an empty space which is an infinite extension by our saying to it: empty space cannot be understood by itself, for extension is the necessary attribute of a body whose sides comprise space;’ a finite body implies the finiteness of extension, which is its attribute and the limitation of occupied space; empty space is unintelligible, therefore there is neither empty nor occupied space behind the world, although the imagination cannot admit this. And in the same way as it is said that spatial extension is an attribute of body, temporal extension is an attribute of motion, for time is the extension of movement just as the space between the sides of a body is the extension of space. And just as the proof that the sides of a body are finite prevents the admission of a spatial extension behind the world, so the proof of the finite character of movement in both directions prevents the supposition of a temporal extension behind the world, although the imagination, subject to its illusion and supposition, admits it and does not hold back from it. There is no difference between temporal extension, which is apprehended as divided through the relation of before and after, and spatial extension, which is apprehended as divided through the relation of high and low. If it is therefore permissible to admit a highest point above which there is nothing, it is equally permissible to admit a beginning, not preceded by anything real, except through an illusion similar to that which permits a beyond for the highest space. This is a legitimate consequence; notice it carefully, as the philosophers themselves agreed that behind the world there is neither empty nor occupied space.</p></blockquote>
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| I say:
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| There are two parts to this objection; the first is that, when we imagine the past and the future, i.e. the prior and the posterior, they are two things existing in relation to our imagination, because we can imagine a future event as becoming past and a past event as having been future. But if this is so, past and future are not real things in themselves and do not possess existence outside the soul; they are only constructs of the soul. And when movement is annihilated, the relation and measure of time will not have sense any more.
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| The answer is that the necessary connexion of movement and time is real and time is something the soul constructs in movement, but neither movement nor time is annihilated: they are only abolished in those things which are not subject to motion, but in the existence of moving things or in their possible existence time inheres necessarily. For there are only two kinds of being, those that are subject to motion and those that are not, and the one kind cannot be converted into the other, for otherwise a conversion of the necessary into the possible would become possible. For if movement were impossible and then afterwards occurred, the nature of things which arc not subject to motion would have changed into the nature of things subject to motion, and this is impossible. This is a consequence of the fact that motion inheres necessarily in a substratum. If movement were possible before the existence of the world, the things which are subject to movement would be necessarily in time, for movement is only possible in what is subject to rest,’ not in absolute non-existence, for in absolute non-existence there is no possibility whatever, or one would have to admit that absolute non-existence could be converted into existence. Therefore, the non-existence or privation which necessarily precedes the occurrence of a thing has to be connected with a substratum, and will be disconnected from it when the substratum actually receives this occurrence, as happens with all contraries. For instance, when a warm thing becomes cold, the essence of warmth does not change into coldness; it is only the receptacle and the substratum of warmth that exchange their warmth for coldness.
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| The second part of this objection-and it is the most important of these objections-is sophistical and malicious. It amounts to saying that to imagine something before the beginning of this first movement (which is not preceded by any moving body) is like the illusion that the end of the world, for example, its highest part, ends necessarily either in another body or in empty space, for extension is a necessary attribute of body, as time is a necessary attribute of movement. And if it is impossible that there should be an infinite body, it is impossible that there should be an infinite extension, and, if it is impossible that there should be infinite extension, it is impossible that every body should end in another body or in something which has the potentiality of extension, i.e. for instance, emptiness, and that this should continue without end. And the same applies to movement which has time as a necessary attribute, for if it is impossible that there should be infinite past movements and there exists therefore a first movement with a finite initial term, it is impossible that there should exist a ‘before’ before it, for, if so, there would be another movement before the first.
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| This objection is, as we said, malicious, and belongs to the class of sophistical substitutions-you will recognize what I mean if you have read the book On sophistic refutations. In other words, Ghazali treats the quantity which has no position and does not form a totality, i.e. time and motion, as the quantity which possesses position and totality, i.e. body. He makes the impossibility of endlessness in the latter a proof of its impossibility in the former, and he deals with the act of the soul when it imagines an increase in the one quantity which is assumed to be actual, i.e. body, as if it concerned both quantities. This is a manifest error. For to imagine an increase in actual spatial magnitude, so that it must end in another actual spatial magnitude, is to imagine something which does not exist in the essence and definition of spatial magnitude, but to imagine priority and posteriority in a movement that occurs is to imagine something that belongs to its essence. For a movement can only occur in time, i.e. time has to pass beyond its beginning. For this reason one cannot represent a time the initial term of which is not the final term of another time, for the definition of ‘the instant’ is that it is the end of the past and the beginning of the future,’ for the instant is the present which necessarily is the middle between the past and the future, and to represent a present which is not preceded by a past is absurd. This, however, does not apply to the point, for the point is the end of the line and exists at the same time as the line, for the line is at rest. Therefore one can imagine a point which is the beginning of a line without its being the end of another line, but the instant cannot exist without the past and tile future, and exists necessarily after the past and before the future, and what cannot subsist in itself cannot exist before the existence of the future without being the end of tile past. The cause of this error is the comparison of the instant with the point. The proof that each movement which occurs is preceded by time is this: everything must come to exist out of a privation, and nothing can become in the instant-of which it can be truly said that its becoming is a vanishing-and so it must be true that its privation must be in another moment than that in which it itself exists, and there is time between each pair of instants, because instant is not continuous with instant, nor point continuous with point. This has been proved in the sciences. Therefore before the instant in which the movement occurs there must necessarily be a time, because, when we represent two instants in reality, there must necessarily be time between them.
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| And what is said in this objection that ‘higher’ resembles ‘before’ is not true, nor does the instant resemble the point, nor the quantity which possesses position the quantity which does not possess position.’ He who allows the existence of an instant which is not a present, or of a present which is not preceded by a past, denies time and the instant, for he assumes an instant as having the description which we have mentioned, and then assumes a time which has no beginning-which is a self-contradictory assumption. It is, therefore, wrong to ascribe to an act of imagination the fact that there is a prior event for every occurrence, for he who denies priority denies the event in time. The contrary is the case with the man who denies the real character of the high, for he denies the absolutely high and, when he denies the absolutely high, he denies also the absolutely low,’ and when these two are denied, also the heavy and the light are denied’, and the act of the imagination that a body with straight dimensions must end in another body is not false; no, this is a necessary truth, for the body with straight dimensions has the possibility of increasing, and what has this possibility is not limited by nature. Therefore the body with straight surfaces must end in the circumscribing circular body, since this is the perfect body which is liable neither to increase nor to decrease. Therefore when the mind seeks to imagine that the circular body must end in another body, it imagines the impossible. These are all matters of which the theologians and those who do not start their inquiry in the proper scientific order are unaware.
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| Further, the relation between time and motion is not the same as that between spatial limit and spatial magnitude, for the spatial limit is an attribute of spatial magnitude, in so far as it inheres in it, in the way that the accident inheres in its substratum and is individualized by the individuality of its substratum and is indicated by pointing at its substratum and by its being in the place in which its substratum is. But this is not the case with the necessary relation between time and motion. For the dependence of time on motion is much like the dependence of number on the thing numbered: just as number does not become individualized through tire individuation of the thing numbered, nor pluralized through its plurality, so it stands with the relation between time and movement. Time, therefore, is unique for all movement and for each thing moving, and exists everywhere, so that if we should suppose people confined from youth in a cave in the earth, still we should be sure that they would perceive time, even if they did not perceive any of the movements which are perceived in the world. Aristotle therefore thought that the existence of movements in time is much like the existence of the things numbered in numbers for number is not pluralized through the plurality of the things numbered, nor is it localized through the individuation of the places numbered. He thought, therefore, that its specific quality was to mesaure the movements and to measure the existence of moving things, in so far as they are moving, as number counts the individual moving things, and therefore Aristotle says in his definition of time that it is the number of movement according to the relations of anterior and posterior.’ Therefore, just as the supposition that a thing numbered occurs does not imply that number comes into existence, but it is a necessary condition for the occurrence of a thing numbered that number should exist before it, so the occurrence of movement implies that there was time before it. If time occurred with the occurrence of any individual movement whatever, time would only be perceived with that individual movement. This will make you understand how different the nature of time is from the nature of spatial magnitude.
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| <blockquote style="padding: 1em;border: 1px dashed #2f6fab;color: black;background-color: #EFEFEF;">"''Ghazali answers on behalf of the philosophers:
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| It may be said: This comparisons is lame, for there is neither above nor below in the world; for the world is spherical, and in the sphere there is neither above nor below; if the one direction is called above, because it is overhead, and the other below, because it is under foot, this name is always determined in relation to you, and the direction which is below in relation to you is above in relation to another, if you imagine him standing on the other side of the terrestrial globe with the sole of his foot opposite the sole of your foot. Yes, these parts of heaven which you reckon above during the day are identical with what is below during the night, and what is below the earth comes again above the earth through the daily revolution. But it cannot be imagined that the beginning of the world becomes its end. If we imagined a stick with one thick and one thin end and we agreed to call the part nearest the thin end ‘above’ and the other ‘below’, there would not arise from this an essential differentiation in the parts of the world; it would simply be that different names would have been applied to the shape of the stick, so that if we substituted the one name for the other, there would be an exchange of names, but the world itself would remain unchanged. So ‘above’ and ‘below’ are a mere relation to you without any differentiation in the parts and places of the world. The non-existence, however, preceding the world and the initial term of its existence are essential realities, a substitution or a change of which cannot be imagined. Nor can it be imagined that the non-existence which is supposed to occur at the disappearance of the world and which follows the world can become the non-existence preceding it. The initial and final terms of the world’s existence are permanent essential terms, in which no change can be imagined through the change of the subjective relation to them, in contrast with ‘above’ and ‘below’. Therefore we philosophers, indeed, are justified in saying that in the world there is neither ‘above’ nor ‘below’, but you theologians have not the right to assert that the existence of the world has neither a ‘before’ nor an ‘after’.
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| And when the existence of ‘before’ and ‘after’ is proved, time cannot mean anything but what is apprehended through the anterior and the posterior.</p></blockquote>
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| I say:
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| This answer given in the name of the philosophers is extremely unsound. It amounts to saying that ‘above’ and ‘below’ are relative to us and that therefore imagination can treat them as an infinite sequence, but that the sequence of ‘before’ and ‘after’ does not rest on imagination-for there is here no subjective relation-but is a ~ purely rational concept. This means that the order of above and below in a thing may be reversed in imagination, but that the privation before an event and the privation after an event, its before and its after, are not interchangeable for imagination. But by giving this answer the problem is not solved, for the philosophers think that i there exists a natural above; to which light things move and a natural below to which heavy things move, or else the heavy and the light would be relative and exist by convention, and they hold that in imagination the limit of a body, having by nature its place above, may end either in occupied or in empty space. And this argument is in- valid as a justification of the philosophers for two reasons. First, that the philosophers assume an absolute above and an absolute below, but no absolute beginning and no absolute end; secondly that their opponents may object that it is not the fact of their being relative that causes the imagination to regard the sequence of low and high as an infinite series, but that this happens to the imagination because it observes that every spatial magnitude is continuous with another spatial magnitude, just as any event is preceded by another event. n Therefore Ghazali transfers the question from the words ‘above’ and ‘below’ to ‘inside’ and ‘outside’s and he says in his answer to the philosophers:
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| There is no real difference in the words ‘above’ and ‘below’, and therefore there is no sense in defining them, but we will apply ourselves rather to the words ‘inside’ and ‘outside’. We say: The world has an inside and an outside; and we ask: Is there outside the world an occupied or empty space? The philosophers will answer: There is outside the world neither occupied nor empty space, and if you mean by ‘outside’ its extreme surface, then there is an outside, but if you mean anything else, there is no outside. Therefore if they ask us theologians if there is anything before the existence of the world, we say: If you mean by it the beginning, i.e. its initial term, then there is a before, just as there is an outside to the world according to your explanation that that is its ultimate limit and its final plane, but if you mean anything else, then there is not, in analogy with your answer.
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| If you say: A beginning of existence, without anything preceding it, cannot be understood, we say: A limit of a body existing without anything outside it cannot be understood.’ If you say: Its exterior is its furthest plane and nothing else, we say: Its before is the beginning of its existence, nothing else. The conclusion is that we say: We affirm that God has an existence without the world’s existing, and this assumption again does not force us to accept anything else. That to assume more rests on the act of imagination is proved by the fact that imagination acts in the same way in regard to time as in regard to place, for although our opponents believe in the eternity of the world, their imagination is willing to suppose it created; whereas we, who believe in its creation, are often allowed by our imagination to regard it as eternal. So much as far as body is concerned; but to revert to time, our opponents do not regard a time without a beginning as possible, and yet in opposition to this belief their imagination can represent it as a possible assumption, although time cannot be represented by the imagination in the way that body is represented, for neither the champion nor the opponent of the finitude of body can imagine a body not surrounded by empty or occupied space; the imagination simply refuses to accept it. Therefore one should say: a clear thinker pays no attention to the imagination when he cannot deny the finitude of body by proof, nor does he give attention to the imagination when he cannot deny the beginning of an existence without anything preceding it, which the imagination cannot grasp. For the imagination, as it is only accustomed to a body limited by another body or by air, represents emptiness in this way, although emptiness, being imperceptible, cannot be occupied by anything. Likewise the imagination, being only accustomed to an event occurring after another event, fears to suppose an event not preceded by another event which is terminated. And this is the reason of the error.
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| I say:
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| Through this transference, by his comparing the time-limit with the spatial limit in his argument against the philosophers, this argument becomes invalid and we have already shown the error through which it is specious and the sophistical character of the argument, and we need not repeat ourselves.
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| <blockquote style="padding: 1em;border: 1px dashed #2f6fab;color: black;background-color: #EFEFEF;">"''Ghazali says:
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| The philosophers have a second way of forcing their opponents to admit the eternity of time. They say: You do not doubt that God was able to create the world one year, a hundred years, a thousand years, and so ad infinitum, before He created it and that those possibilities are different in magnitude and number. Therefore it is necessary to admit before the existence of the world a measurable extension, one part of which can be longer than another part, and therefore it is necessary that something should have existed before the existence of the world. If you say the word ‘years’ cannot be applied before the creation and revolution of heaven, let us drop the word ‘years’ and let us give another turn to our argument and say: If we suppose that from the beginning of the world till now the sphere of the world has performed, for instance, a thousand revolutions, was God able to create a second world before it, which, for example, would have performed eleven hundred revolutions up to now? If you deny it, it would mean that the Eternal had passed from impotence to power or the world from impossibility to possibility, but if you accept it, and you cannot but accept it, it may be asked if God was able to create a third world which would have performed twelve hundred revolutions up to now and you will have to admit this. We philosophers say: Then, could the world which we called by the order of our supposition the third, although as a matter of fact it is the first, have been created at the same time as the world we called the second, so that the former would have performed twelve hundred revolutions and the latter eleven hundred revolutions, it being understood that both, in revolving, complete the same distance at the same speed? If you were to admit this, you would be admitting something absurd, for it would be absurd that in that case the number of the two revolutions, having the same speed and finishing at the same moment, should be different. But, if you answer that it is impossible that the third world which has up to now performed twelve hundred revolutions could have been created at the same time as the second world which has up to now performed eleven hundred revolutions, and that on the contrary it must have been created the same number of years earlier than the second, as the second has been created before the first-we call it first, as it comes first in order, when in imagination we proceed from our time to it-then there exists a quantity of possibility double that of another possibility, and there is doubtless another possibility which doubles the whole of the others. These measurable quantitative possibilities, of which some are longer than others by a definite measure, have no other reality than time, and those measurable quantities are not an attribute of the essence of God, who is too exalted to possess measure,’ nor an attribute of the non-existence of the world, for non-existence is nothing and therefore cannot be measured with different measures. Still, quantity is an attribute which demands a substratum, and this is nothing other than movement, and quantity is nothing but the time which measures movement. Therefore also for you theologians there existed before the world a substratum of differentiated quantity, namely time, and according to you time existed before the world.’</p></blockquote>
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| I say:
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| The summary of this argument is that, when we imagine a movement, we find with it an extension which measures it, as if it were its measurement, while reciprocally the movement measures the extension, and we find that we can assume in this measure and this extension a movement longer than the first supposed movement, and we affirm through the corresponding and congruous units of this extension that the one movement is longer than the other.’ If therefore for you theologians the world has a certain extension from its beginning till now-let us suppose, for instance, a thousand years and since God according to you is able to create before this world another world, we may suppose that the extension He can give it will be longer than the extension of the first world by a certain definite quantity, and that He can likewise create a third world before this second and that the existence of each of them must be preceded by an extension through which its existence can be measured. If this is true, and there is an infinite regress of this possibility of anterior worlds, there is an extension which precedes all these worlds. And this extension which measures all of them cannot be absolute nonexistence, for non-existence cannot measure; it has, therefore, to be a quantity, for what measures a quantity has to be quantity itself, and the measuring quantity is that which we call time. And it is clear that this must precede in existence anything we imagine to occur, just as the measure must precede the measured in existence. If this extension which is time were to occur at the occurrence of the first movement, then it would have to be preceded by an extension which could measure it, in which it could occur, and which could be like its measurement. And in the same way any world which could be imagined would have to be preceded by an extension which measures it. Therefore this extension has no beginning, for if it had a beginning it would have to have an extension which measured it, for each event which begins has an extension which measures it and which we call time.
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| This is the most suitable exposition of this argument, and this is the method by which Avicenna proves infinite time, but there is a difficulty in understanding it, because of the problem that each possible has one extension and each extension is connected with its own possible and this forms a point of discussion;’ or one must concede that the possibilities prior to the world are of the same nature as the possible inside the world, i.e. as it is of the nature of this possible inside the world that time inheres in it, so also with the possible which is prior to the world. This is clear concerning the possible inside the world, and therefore the existence of time may be imagined from it.
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| <blockquote style="padding: 1em;border: 1px dashed #2f6fab;color: black;background-color: #EFEFEF;">"''Ghazali says:
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| <p>
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| The objection is that all this is the work of imagination, and the most convenient way of refuting it is to compare time with place; therefore we say: Was it not in God’s power to create the highest sphere in its heaven a cubit higher than He has created it? If the answer is negative, this is to deny God’s power, and if the answer is affirmative, we ask: And by two cubits and by three cubits and so on ad infinitum? Now we affirm that this amounts to admitting behind the world a spatial extension which has measure and quantity, as a thing which is bigger by two or three cubits than another occupies a space bigger by two or three cubits, and by reason of this there is behind the world a quantity which demands a substratum and this is a body or empty space. Therefore, there is behind the world empty or occupied space. And how can you answer this? And likewise we may ask, whether God was not able to create the sphere of the world smaller than He has created it by a cubit or two cubits? And is there no difference between those two magnitudes in regard to the occupied space taken away from them and the space they still occupy, for the occupied space withdrawn is bigger when two cubits are taken away than when one cubit is taken away? And therefore empty space has measure. But emptiness is nothing; how can it have measure? And our answer is: ‘It belongs to the illusion of imagination to suppose possibilities in time before the existence of the world’, just as your answer is: ‘It belongs to the illusion of imagination to suppose possibilities in space behind the existence of the world.’ There is no difference between those two points of view.’</p></blockquote>
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| I say:
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| This consequence is true against the theory which regards an infinite increase in the size of the world as possible, for it follows from this theory that a finite thing proceeds from God which is preceded by infinite quantitative possibilities. And if this is allowed for possibility in space, it must also be allowed in regard to the possibility in time, and we should have a time limited in both directions, although it would be preceded by infinite temporal possibilities. The answer is, however, that to imagine the world to be bigger or smaller does not conform to truth but is impossible. But the impossibility of this does not imply that to imagine the possibility of a world before this world is to imagine an impossibility, except in case the nature of the possible were already realized and there existed before the existence of the world only two natures, the nature of the necessary and the nature of the impossible? But it is evident that the judgement of reason concerning the being of these three natures is eternal, like its judgement concerning the necessary and the impossible.
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| This objection, however, does not touch the philosophers, because they hold that the world could not be smaller or bigger than it is, if it were possible that a spatial magnitude could infinitely increase, then the existence of a spatial magnitude without end would be possible and a spatial magnitude, actually infinite, would exist, and this is impossible and Aristotle has already shown the impossibility of this.’ But against the man who believes in this possibility, because the contrary would imply a denial of God’s power, this argument is valid, for this spatial possibility is just as much a purely rational concept as the possibility of temporal anteriority according to the philosophers. Therefore, he who believes in the temporal creation of the world and affirms that all body is in space, is bound to admit that before the creation of the world there was space, either occupied by body, in which the production of the world could occur, or empty, for it is necessary that space should precede what is produced.’ The man who denies empty space and affirms the finiteness of body-like certain later Ash’arites who, however, separated themselves from the principles of the theologians; but I have not read it in their books and it was told to me by some who studied their doctrines-cannot admit the temporal production of the world. If the fact of this extension which measures movement and which stands in relation to it as its measurement were indeed the work of an illusion-like the representation of a world bigger or smaller than it really is-time would not exist, for time is nothing but what the mind perceives of this extension which measures movement. And if it is self-evident that time exists, then the act of the mind must necessarily be a veracious one, embodying reason, not one embodying illusion.
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| <blockquote style="padding: 1em;border: 1px dashed #2f6fab;color: black;background-color: #EFEFEF;">"''Ghazali says:
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| <p>
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| It has been objected: we declare that what is not possible is what cannot be done and increase or decrease in the size of the world is impossible, and therefore could not be brought about.</p></blockquote>
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| I say
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| This is the answer to the objection of the Ash’arites that to admit that God could not have made the world bigger or smaller is to charge Him with impotence, but they have thereby compromised themselves, for impotence is not inability to do the impossible, but inability to do what can be done.
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| <blockquote style="padding: 1em;border: 1px dashed #2f6fab;color: black;background-color: #EFEFEF;">"''Ghazali, opposing this, says:
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| <p>
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| This excuse is invalid for three reasons: The first is that it is an affront to reason, for when reason regards it as possible that the world might be bigger or smaller than it is by a cubit, this is not the same as regarding it as possible to identify black with white and existence with non-existence; impossibility lies in affirming the negative and the positive at the same time, and all impossibilities amount to this. This is indeed a silly and faulty assertion.’</p></blockquote>
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| I say:
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| This statement is, as he says, an affront to reason, but only to the reason of him who judges superficially; it is not an affront to true reason, for a statement about its being possible or not’ requires a proof. And therefore he is right when he declares that this is not impossible in the way in which the assumption that black might be white is impossible, for the impossibility of the latter is self-evident. The statement, however, that the world could not be smaller or larger than it is is not self-evident. And although all impossibilities can be reduced to self-evident impossibilities, this reduction can take place in two ways. The first is that the impossibility is self-evident; the second is that there follows sooner or later from its supposition an impossibility of the same character as that of self-evident impossibilities.’ For instance, if it is assumed that the world might be larger or smaller than it is, it follows that outside it there would be occupied or empty space. And from the supposition that there is outside it occupied or empty space, some of the greatest impossibilities follow: from empty space the existence of mere extension existing by itself; from occupied space a body moving either upward or downward or in a circle which therefore must be part of another world. Now it has been proved in the science of physics that the existence of another world at the same time as this is an impossibility and the most unlikely consequence would be that the world should have empty space: for any world must needs have four elements and a spherical body revolving round them. He who wants to ascertain this should look up the places where its exposition is demanded-this, of course, after having fulfilled the preliminary conditions necessary for the student to understand strict proof .
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| <blockquote style="padding: 1em;border: 1px dashed #2f6fab;color: black;background-color: #EFEFEF;">"''Then Ghazali mentions the second reason:
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| <p>
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| If the world is in the state it is, without the possibility of being larger or smaller than it is, then its existence, as it is, is necessary, not possible. But the necessary needs no cause. So say, then, as the materialists do that you deny the creator and that you deny the cause of causes! But this is not your doctrine.</p></blockquote>
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| I say:
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| To this the answer which, Avicenna gives in accordance with his doctrine is quite appropriate.’ According to him necessity of existence is of two kinds: the necessary, existent by itself, and the necessary, existent through another. But my answer on this question is still more to the point: things necessary in this sense need not have an agent or a maker; take, for example, a saw which is used to saw wood-it is a tool having a certain determined quantity, quality, and matter, that is, it is not possible for it to be of another material than iron and it could not have any other shape than that of a saw or any other measure than the measure of a saw. Still nobody would say that the saw has a necessity of being= See, therefore, how crude this mistake is! If one were to take away the necessity from the quantities, qualities, and matters of things produced by art, in the way the Ash’arites imagine this to happen concerning the created in relation to the creator, the wisdom which lies in the creator and the created would have been withdrawn, any agent could be an artificer and any cause in existence a creator. But all this is a denial of reason and wisdom.
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| <blockquote style="padding: 1em;border: 1px dashed #2f6fab;color: black;background-color: #EFEFEF;">"''Ghazali says:
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| <p>
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| The third reason is that this faulty argument authorizes its opponent to oppose it by a similar one, and we may say: The existence of the world was not possible before its existence, for indeed possibility-according to your theory-is coextensive with existence, neither more nor less. If you say: ‘But then the eternal has passed from impotence to power’, we answer:
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| <p>
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| ‘No, for the existence was not possible and therefore could not be brought about and the impossibility of a thing’s happening that could not happen does not indicate impotence.’ If you say: ‘How can a thing which is impossible become possible?’ We answer: ‘But why should it be impossible that a thing should be impossible at one moment and possible at another?’ If you say: ‘The times are similar,’ the answer is: ‘But so are the measures, and why should one measure be possible and another, bigger or smaller by the width of a nail, impossible?’ And if the latter assumption is not impossible, the former is not impossible either.’ And this is the way to oppose them.
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| <p>
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| But the true answer is that their supposition of possibilities makes no sense whatever. We concede only that God is eternal and powerful, and that His action never fails, even if He should wish it. And there is nothing in this power that demands the assumption of a temporal extension, unless imagination, confusing God’s power with other things, connects it with time.</p></blockquote>
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| I say:
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| The summary of this is that the Ash’arites say to the philosophers: this question whether the world could be larger or smaller is impossible according to us; it has sense only for the man who believes in a priority of possibility in relation to the actualization of a thing, i.e. the realization of the possible. We, the Ash’arites, however, say: ‘Possibility occurs together with the actuality as it is, without adding or subtracting anything.’
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| Now my answer is that he who denies the possibility of the possible before its existence denies the necessary, for the possible is the contrary of the impossible without there existing a middle term, and, if a thing is not possible before its existence, then it is necessarily impossible.’ Now to posit the impossible as existing is an impossible falsehood, but to posit the possible as existing is a possible, not an impossible, falsehood.’ Their assertion that possibility and actuality exist together is a falsehood, for possibility and actuality are contradictory, and do not exist together in one and the same moment. The necessary consequence for them is that possibility exists neither at the same time as the actuality nor before it. The true consequence for the Ash’arites in this discussion is not that the eternal passes from impotence to power, for he who cannot do an impossible act is not called impotent, but that a thing can pass from the nature of the i impossible to the nature of existence, and this is like the changing of the necessary into the possible. To posit a thing, however, as impossible at one time and possible at another does not cut it off from the nature of the possible, for this is the general character of the possible; the existence of anything possible, for instance, is impossible at the moment when its contrary exists in its substratum. If the opponent concedes that a thing impossible at one time is possible at another, then he has conceded that this thing is of the nature of the absolutely possible’ and that it has not the nature of the impossible. If it is assumed that the world was impossible for an infinite time before its production, the consequence is that, when it was produced, it changed over from impossibility to possibility. This question is not the problem with which we are concerned here, but as we have said before, the transference from one problem to another is an act of sophistry.
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| <blockquote style="padding: 1em;border: 1px dashed #2f6fab;color: black;background-color: #EFEFEF;">"''And as to his words:
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| <p>
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| But the true answer is that their supposition of possibilities makes no sense whatever. We concede only that God is eternal and powerful and that His action never fails, even if He should wish it. And there is nothing in this power that demands the assumption of a temporal extension, unless imagination confusing God’s power with other things connects with it time.</p></blockquote>
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| I say:
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| Even if there were nothing in this supposition-as he says-that implies the eternity of time, there is something in it that demands that the possibility of the occurrence of the world and equally of time should be eternal. And this is that God never ceases to have power for action, and that it is impossible that anything should prevent His act from being eternally connected with His existence; and perhaps the opposite of this statement indicates the impossibility better still, namely, that He should have no power at one time but power at another, and that He could be called powerful only at definite limited times, although He is ark eternal and perpetual being. And then we have the old question again whether the world may be either eternal or temporal, or whether the world cannot be eternal, or whether the world cannot be temporal, or whether the world may be temporal but certainly cannot be eternal, and whether, if the world is temporal, it can be a first act or not. And if reason has no power to pronounce for one of these opposite propositions, let us go back to tradition, but do not then regard this question as a rational one! We say that the First Cause cannot omit the best act and perform an inferior, because this would be an imperfection; but can there be a greater imperfection than to assume the act of the Eternal as finite and limited, like the act of a temporal product, although a limited act can only be imagined of a limited agent, not of the eternal agent whose existence and action are unlimited? .All this, as you see, cannot be unknown to the man who has even the slightest understanding of the rational. And how can it be thought that the present act proceeding from the Eternal cannot be preceded by another act, and again by another, and so in our thinking infinitely, like the infinite continuation of His existence? For it is a necessary consequence that the act of Him whose existence time cannot measure nor comprehend in either direction cannot be comprehended in time nor measured by a limited duration. For there is no being whose act is delayed after its existence, except when there is an impediment which prevents its existence from attaining its perfection,’ or, in voluntary beings, when there is an obstruction in the execution of their choice. He, therefore, who assumes that from the Eternal there proceeds only a temporal act presumes that His act is constrained in a certain way and in this way therefore does not depend on His choice.
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| ==The Third Proof== | | ==The Third Proof== |
Let us restrict ourselves in this chapter to those proofs that make an impression on the mind.
This chapter contains four proofs.
The Third Proof
"Ghazali says:
They insist on saying: The existence of the world is possible before its existence, as it is absurd that it should be impossible and then become possible; this possibility has no beginning, it is eternally unchangeable and the existence of the world remains eternally possible, for at no time whatever can the existence of the world be described as impossible; and if the possibility never ceases, the possible, in conformity with the possibility, never ceases either; and the meaning of the sentence, that the existence of the world is possible, is that the existence of the world is not impossible; and since its existence is eternally possible, it is never impossible, for if it were ever impossible, it would not be true that the existence of the world is eternally possible; and if it were not true that the existence of the world is eternally possible, it would not be true that its possibility never ceases; and if it were not true that its possibility never ceases, it would be true that its possibility had begun; and if it were true that its possibility had begun, its existence before this beginning would not be possible and that would lead to the assumption of a time when the world was not possible and God had no power over it.
I say:
He who concedes that the world before its existence was of a never-ceasing possibility must admit that the world is eternal, for the assumption that what is eternally possible is eternally existent implies no absurdity. What can possibly exist eternally must necessarily exist eternally, for what can receive eternity cannot become corruptible, except if it were possible that the corruptible could become eternal. Therefore Aristotle has said that the possibility in the eternal beings is necessary.’
"Ghazali says:
The objection is that it is said that the temporal becoming of the world never ceased to be possible, and certainly there is no time at which its becoming could not be imagined. But although it could be at any time, it did not become at any time whatever, for reality does not conform to possibility, but differs from it. You yourself hold, for instance, in the matter of place, that the world could be bigger than it is or that the creation of an infinite series of bodies above the world is possible, and that there is no limit to the possibilities of increase in the size of the world, but still the actual existence of absolutely infinite occupied space and of any infinite and limitless being is impossible. What is said to be possible is an actual body of a limited surface, but the exact size of this body, whether it is larger or smaller, is not specified. In the same way, what is possible is the coming into existence of the world in time, but the exact time of its coming into existence whether earlier or later, is not specified. The principle of its having come into being is specified and this is the possible, nothing else.’
I say:
The man who assumes that before the existence of the world there was one unique, never-ceasing possibility must concede that the world is eternal. The man who affirms, like Ghazali in his answer, that before the world there was an infinite number of possibilities of worlds, has certainly to admit that before this world there was another world and before this second world a third, and so on ad infinitum, as is the case with human beings, and especially when it is assumed that the perishing of the earlier is the necessary condition for the existence of the later. For instance, if God had the power to create another world before this, and before this second world yet another, the series must continue infinitely, or else we should arrive at a world before which no other world could have been created (however, the theologians do not affirm this nor use it as a proof for the temporal production of the world). Although the assumption that before this world there might be an infinite number of others does not seem an impossible one, it appears after closer examination to be absurd, for it would follow from it that the universe had the nature of an individual person in this transitory world, so that its procession from the First Principle would be like the procession of the individual person from Him-that is to say, through an eternal moving body and an eternal motion. But then this world would be part of another world, like the transient beings in this world, and then necessarily either we end finally in a world individually eternal or we have an infinite series. And if we have to bring this series to a standstill, it is more appropriate to arrest it at this world, by regarding it as eternally unique.
The Fourth Proof
"Ghazali says:
The fourth proof is that they say everything that becomes is preceded by the matter which is in it, for what becomes cannot be free from matter.’ For this reason matter never becomes; what becomes is only the form, the accidents and the qualities which add themselves to matters The proof is that the existence of each thing that becomes must, before its becoming, either be possible, impossible, or necessary: it cannot be impossible, for the essentially impossible will never exist; it cannot be necessary, for the essentially necessary will never be in a state of non-existence, and therefore it is the essentially possible.’ Therefore, the thing which becomes has before its becoming the possibility of becoming, but the possibility of becoming is an attribute which needs a relation and has no subsistence in itself.’ It needs, therefore, a substratum with which it can be connected, and there is no substratum except matter, and it becomes connected with it in the way in which we say this matter receives warmth and coldness, or black and white, or movement and rest, i.e. it is possible that these qualities and these changes occur in it and therefore possibility is an attribute of matter. Matter does not possess other matter, and cannot become; for, if it did, the possibility of its existence would precede its existence, and possibility would subsist by itself without being related to anything else, whereas it is a relative attribute which cannot be understood as subsisting by itself. And it cannot be said that the meaning of possibility amounts to what can be done and what the Eternal had the power to do, because we know only that a thing can be done, because it is possible, and we say ‘this can be done because it is possible and cannot be done because it is not possible’; and if ‘this is possible’ meant ‘this can be done’, to say ‘this can be done because it is possible’ would mean ‘this is possible because it is possible’, and this is a circular definition; and this shows that ‘this is possible’ is a first judgement in the mind, evident in itself, which makes the second judgement ‘that it can be done’ intelligible. It cannot be said, either, that to be possible refers to the knowledge of the Eternal, for knowledge depends on a thing known, whereas possibility is undoubtedly an object of knowledge, not knowledge; further, it is a relative attribute, and needs something to which it can be related, and this can only be matter, and everything that becomes is preceded by matter.
I say:
The summary of this is that everything that becomes is possible before it becomes, and that possibility needs something for its subsistence, namely, the substratum which receives that which is possible. For it must not be believed that the possibility of the recipient is the same as the possibility of the agent. It is a different thing to say about Zaid, the agent, that he can do something and to say about the patient that it can have something done to it. Thus the possibility of the patient is a necessary condition for the possibility of the agent, for the agent which cannot act is not possible but impossible. Since it is impossible that the possibility prior to the thing’s becoming should be absolutely without substratum, or that the agent should be its substratum or the thing possible-for the thing possible loses its possibility, when it becomes actual-there only remains as a vehicle for possibility the recipient of the possible, i.e. matter. Matter, in so far as it is matter, does not become; for if it did it would need other matter and we should have an infinite regress. Matter only becomes in so far as it is combined with form. Everything that comes into being comes into being from something else, and this must either give rise to an infinite regress and lead directly to infinite matter which is impossible, even if we assume an eternal mover, for there is no actual infinite; or the forms must be interchangeable in the ingenerable and incorruptible substratum, eternally and in rotation.’ There must, therefore, be an eternal movement which produces this interchange in the eternally transitory things. And therefore it is clear that the generation of the one in each pair of generated beings is the corruption of the other; otherwise a thing could come into being from nothing, for the meaning of ‘becoming’ is the alteration of a thing and its change, from what it has potentially, into actuality. It is not possible that the privation itself should change into the existent, and it is not the privation of which it is said that it has become. There exists, therefore, a substratum for the contrary forms, and it is in this substratum that the forms interchange.
"Ghazali says:
The objection is that the possibility of which they speak is a judgement of the intellect, and anything whose existence the intellect supposes, provided no obstacle presents itself to the supposition, we call possible and, if there is such an obstacle, we call it impossible and, if we suppose that it cannot be supposed not to be, we call it necessary. These are rational judgements which need no real existent which they might qualify. There are three proofs of this. The first is: If possibility needed an existent to which it could be related, and of which it could be said that it is its possibility, impossibility also would need an existent of which it might be said that it is its impossibility; but impossibility has no real existence, and there is no matter in which it occurs and to which it could be related.
I say:
That possibility demands an existing matter is clear, for all true intellectual concepts need a thing outside the soul, for truth, as it has been defined, is the agreement of what is in the soul with what is outside the soul.’ And when we say that something is possible, we cannot but understand that it needs something in which this possibility can be. As regards his proof that the possible is not dependent on an existent, because the impossible is not dependent on an existent, this is sophistical. Indeed the impossible demands a substratum just as much as the possible does, and this is clear from the fact that the impossible is the opposite of the possible and opposite contraries undoubtedly require a substratum. For impossibility is the negation of possibility, and, if possibility needs a substratum, impossibility which is the negation of this possibility requires a substratum too, e.g. we say that the existence of empty space is impossible, because the existence of independent dimensions outside or inside natural bodies is impossible, or that the presence of opposites at the same time in the same substratum is impossible, or that the equivalence of one to two is impossible, i.e. in reality. All this is self-evident, and it is not necessary to consider the errors here committed.
"Ghazali says:
The second proof is that the intellect decides that black and white are possible before they exist.’ If this possibility were related to the body in which they inhere, so that it might be said that the meaning is that this body can be black and white, then white would not be possible by itself and possibility would be related only to the body. But we affirm, as concerns the judgement about black in itself, as to whether it is possible, necessary, or impossible, that we, without doubt, will say that it is possible. And this shows that the intellect in order to decide whether something is possible need not admit an existing thing to which the possibility can be related.
I say
This is a sophism. For the possible is predicated of the recipient and of the inherent quality. In so far as it is predicated of the substratum, its opposite is the impossible, and in so far as it is predicated of the inherent, its opposite is the necessary.’ Thus the possible which is described as being the opposite of the impossible is not that which abandons its possibility so far as it is actualized, when it becomes actual, because this latter loses its possibility in the actualizing process.’ This latter possible is only described by possibility in so far as it is in potency, and the vehicle of this potency is the substratum which changes from existence in potency into existence in actuality.’ This is evident from the definition of the possible that it is the nonexistence which is in readiness to exist or not to exists This possible non-existent is possible neither in so far as it is non-existent nor in so far as it is actually existent. It is only possible in so far as it is in potency, and for this reason the Mu’tazilites affirm that the nonexistent is a kind of entity. For non-existence is the opposite of existence, and each of the two is succeeded by the other, and when the non-existence of a thing disappears it is followed by its existence, and when its existence disappears it is succeeded by its non-existence. As non-existence by itself cannot change into existence, and existence by itself cannot change into non-existence, there must be a third entity which is the recipient for both of them, and that is what is described by ‘possibility’ and ‘becoming’ and ‘change from the quality of non-existence to the quality of existence’. For non-existence itself is not described by ‘becoming’ or ‘change’; nor is the thing that has become actual described in this way, for what becomes loses the quality of becoming, change, and possibility when it has become actual. Therefore there must necessarily be something that can be described by ‘becoming’ and ‘change’ and ‘transition from nonexistence to existence’, as happens in the passage of opposites into opposites; that is to say, there must be a substratum for them in which they can interchange-with this one difference, however, that this substratum exists in the interchange of all the accidents in actuality, whereas in the substance it exists in potency.’
And we cannot think of regarding what is described by ‘possibility’ and ‘change’ as identical with the actual, i.e. which belongs to the becoming in so far as it is actual, for the former again vanishes and the latter must necessarily be a part of the product. Therefore there must necessarily be a substratum which is the recipient for the possibility and which is the vehicle of the change and the becoming, and it is this of which it is said that it becomes, and alters, and changes from non-existence into existence. Nor can we think of making this substratum of the nature of the actualized, for if this were the case the existent would not become, for what becomes comes into being from the non-existent not from the existent.’ Both philosophers and Mu’tazilites agree about the existence of this entity; only the philosophers are of the opinion that it cannot be exempt from a form actually existent, i.e. that it cannot be free from existence, like the transition, for example, from sperma to blood and the transition from blood to the members of the embryo. The reason is that if it were exempt from existence it would have an existence of its own, and if it had an existence of its own, becoming could not come from it. This entity is called by the philosophers ‘lyle’, and it is the cause of generation and corruption. And according to the philosophers an existent which is free from Kyle is neither generable nor corruptible.
"Ghazali says:
The third proof is that the souls of men, according to the philosophers, are substances which subsist by themselves’ without being in a body or in matter or impressed on matters they had a beginning in time, according to the theory of Avicenna and the acknowledged philosophers, they had possibility before their beginning, but they have neither essence nor matter’ and their possibility is a relative attribute, dependent neither on God’s power nor on the Agent;’ but on what then is it dependent? The difficulties are therefore turned against them themselves.
I say:
I do not know any philosopher who said that the soul has a beginning in the true sense of the word and is thereafter everlasting except -as Ghazali relates-Avicenna. All other philosophers agree that in their temporal existence they are related to and connected with the bodily possibilities, which receive this connexion like the possibilities which subsist in mirrors for their connexion with the rays of the suns According to the philosophers this possibility is not of the nature of the generable and corruptible forms, but of a kind to which, according to them, demonstrative proof leads, and the vehicle of this possibility is of another nature than the nature of the Kyle. He alone can grasp their theories in these matters who has read their books and fulfilled the conditions there laid down by them, and has besides a sound understanding and a learned master. That Ghazali should touch on such questions in this way is not worthy of such a man, but there are only these alternatives: either he knew these matters in their true nature, and sets them out here wrongly, which is wicked; or he did not understand their real nature and touched on problems he had not grasped, which is the act of an ignoramus. However, he stands too high in our eyes for either of these qualifications. But even the best horse will stumble’ and it was a stumble of Ghazali’s that he brought out this book. But perhaps he was forced to do so by the conditions of his time and his situation.
"Ghazali says, speaking on behalf of the philosophers:
It may be said: To reduce possibility to a judgement of the intellect is absurd, for the meaning of ‘judgement of the intellect’ is nothing but the knowledge of possibility, and possibility is an object of knowledge, not knowledge itself; knowledge, on the contrary, comprises possibility and follows it and depends on it as it is, and if knowledge vanished the object of knowledge would not, but the disappearance of the object of knowledge would imply the disappearance of knowledge. For knowledge and the object-known are two things, the former dependent on the latter, and if we supposed rational beings to turn away from possibility and neglect it, we should say: ‘It is not possibility that is annulled, for the possibilities subsist by themselves, but it is simply that minds neglect them or that minds and rational beings have disappeared; but possibility remains, without any doubt.’ And the three proofs are not valid, for impossibility requires an existent to which it can be related, and impossibility means identifying two opposites, and if the substratum were white it could not become black as long as the white existed, and therefore we need a substratum, qualified by the quality during the inherence of which its opposite is spoken of as impossible in this substratum, and therefore impossibility is a relative attribute subsistent in a substratum and related to it. And where the necessary is concerned it is evident that it is related to necessary existence.
As concerns the second proof, that black is in itself possible, this is a mistake, for if it is taken, abstracted from the substratum in which it inheres, it is impossible, not possible; it only becomes possible when it can become a form in a body; the body is then in readiness for the interchange, and the interchange is possible for the body; but in itself black has no individuality, so as to be characterizable by possibility.
As concerns the third proof about the soul, it is eternal for one school of philosophers, and is only possible in the attaching of itself to bodies, and therefore against those philosophers the argument does not apply= But for those who admit that the soul comes into existence-and one school of philosophers has believed that it is impressed on matter and follows its temperament, as is indicated by Galen in certain passages-it comes into existence in matter and its possibility is related to its matter.’ And according to the theory of those who admit that it comes into existence, although it is not impressed on matter-which means that it is possible for the rational soul to direct matter-the possibility prior to the becoming is relative to matter , and although the soul is not impressed on matter, it is attached to it, for it is its directing principle and uses it as an instrument, and in this way its possibility is relative to matters.
I say
What he says in this section is true, as will be clear to you from our explanation of the nature of the possible.
"Then Ghazali, objecting to the philosophers, says:
And the answer is: To reduce possibility, necessity, and impossibility to rational concepts is correct, and as for the assertion that the concepts of reason form its knowledge, and knowledge implies a thing known, let them be answered: it cannot be said that receptivity of colour and animality and the other concepts, which are fixed in the mind according to the philosophers-and this is what constitutes the sciences-have no objects ; still these objects have no real existence in the external world, and the philosophers arc certainly right in saying that universals exist only in the mind, not in the external world, and that in the external world there arc only particular individuals, which arc apprehended by the senses, not by reason; and yet these individuals arc the reason why the mind abstracts from them a concept separated from its rational matter; therefore receptivity of colour is a concept, separate in the mind from blackness and whiteness, although in reality a colour which is neither black nor white nor of another colour cannot be imagined,’ and receptivity of colour is fixed in the mind without any specification-now, in the same way, it can be said that possibility is a form which exists in minds, not in the exterior world, and if this is not impossible for other concepts,, there is no impossibility in what we have said.
I say:
This argument is sophistical because possibility is a universal which has individuals outside the mind like all the other universals, and knowledge is not knowledge of the universal concept, but it is a knowledge of individuals in a universal way which the mind attains in the case of the individuals, when it abstracts from them one common nature which is distributed among the different matters. The nature, therefore, of the universal is not identical with the nature of the things of which it is a universal. Ghazali is here in error, for he assumes that the nature of possibility is the nature of the universal, without there being individuals on which this universal, i.e. the universal concept of possibility, depends. The universal, however, is not the object of knowledge; on the contrary through it the things become known, although it exists potentially in the nature of the things known;’ otherwise its apprehension of the individuals, in so far as they are universals, would be false. This apprehension would indeed be false if the nature of the object known were essentially individual, not accidentally individual, whereas the opposite is the case: it is accidentally individual, essentially universal. Therefore if the mind did not apprehend the individuals in so far as they are universal, it would be in error and make false judgements about them. But if it abstracts those natures which subsist in the individual things from their matter, and makes them universal, then it is possible that it judges them rightly; otherwise it would confuse those natures, of which the possible is one.
The theory of the philosophers that universals exist only in the mind, not in the external world, only means that the universals exist actually only in the mind, and not in the external world, not that they do not exist at all in the external world, for the meaning is that they exist potentially, not actually in the external world; indeed, if they did not exist at all in the outside world they would be false. Since universals exist outside the mind in potency and possibilities exist outside the soul in potency, the nature of universals in regard to this resembles that of possibilities. And for this reason Ghazali tried to deceive people by a sophism, for he compared possibility to the universals because of their both being potentially in reality, and then he assumed that the philosophers assert that universals do not exist at all outside the soul; from which he deduced that possibility does not exist outside the soul. What an ugly and crude sophism!
"Ghazali says:
As regards their assertion that, if it were assumed that rational beings had vanished or had neglected possibility, possibility itself would not have disappeared, we answer: ‘If it were assumed that they had vanished, would not the universal concepts, i.e. the genera and species, have disappeared too?’ and if they agree to this, this can only mean that universals are only concepts in the mind; but this is exactly what we say about possibility, and there is no difference between the two cases; if they, however, affirm that they are permanent in the knowledge of God,’ the same may be said about possibility, and the argument is valid, and our aim of showing the contradiction in this theory has been attained.
I say:
This argument shows his foolishness and proneness to contradiction. The most plausible form in which it might be expressed would be to base it on two premisses: the first, that the evident proposition that possibility is partially individual, namely, outside the soul, partially universal, namely, the universal concept of the individual possibles, is not true; and the second, that it was said that the nature of the individual possibles outside the soul is identical with the nature of the universal of possibility in the mind; and in this case the possible would have neither a universal nor an individual nature, or else the nature of the individual would have to be identical with that of the universal. All this is presumptuous, and how should it be else, for in a way the universal has an existence outside the soul.
"Ghazali says:
And as regards their subterfuge where the impossible is concerned, that it is related to the matter qualified by its opposite, as it cannot take the place of its opposite this cannot be the case with every impossible, for that God should have a rival is impossible, but there is no matter to which this impossibility could be related. If they say the impossibility of God’s having a rival, means that the solitude of God in His essence and His uniqueness are necessary and that this solitude is proper to Him, we answer: This is not necessary, for the world exists with Him, and He is therefore not solitary. And if they say that His solitude so far as a rival is concerned is necessary, and that the opposite of the necessary is the impossible, and that the impossible is related to Him, we answer: In this case the solitude of God in regard to the world is different from His solitude in regard to His equal and in this case His solitude in regard to His rival is necessary, and in regard to the created world not necessary.’
I say:
All this is vain talk, for it cannot be doubted that the judgments of the mind have value only in regard to the nature of things outside the soul. If there were outside the soul nothing possible or impossible, the judgment of the mind that things are possible or impossible would be of as much value as no judgment at all, and there would be no difference between reason and illusion. And that there should be a rival to God is just as impossible in reality as God’s existence is i necessary in reality. But there is no sense in wasting more words on this question.
"Ghazali says:
The subterfuge concerning the becoming of the souls is worthless too, for they have individual essences and a possibility prior to their becoming, and at that time there is nothing with which they could be brought into relation. Their argument contends that it is possible for matter that the souls direct it is a remote relation and, if this satisfies you, you might as well say that the possibility of the souls becoming lies in the power of Him who can on His own authority produce them, for the souls are then related to the Agent-although they are not impressed on Him-in the same way as to the body, on which they are not impressed either. And since the imprint is made neither on the one substrate nor on the other, there is no difference between the relation to the agent and that to the patient.
I say:
He wants to force those who assume the possibility of the soul’s becoming without there being an imprint in matter to concede that the possibility in the recipient is like the possibility in the agent, because the act proceeds from the agent and therefore these two possibilities are similar. But this is a shocking supposition, for, according to it, the soul would come to the body as if it directed it from the outside, as the artisan directs his product, and the soul would not be a form in the body, just as the artisan is not a form in his product. The answer is that it is not impossible that there should be amongst i the entelechies which conduct themselves like formsb something that is separate from its substratum as the steersman is from his ships and the artisan from his tool, and if the body is like the instrument of the soul, the soul is a separate form, and then the possibility which is in the instrument is not like the possibility which is in the agent; no, the instrument is in both conditions, the possibility which is in the patient and the possibility which is in the agent, and therefore the instruments are the mover and the moved, and in so far as they are the mover, there is in them the possibility which is in the agent, and in so far as they are moved, the possibility which is in the recipient.’ But the supposition that the soul is a separate entity does not force them into the admission that the possibility which is in the recipient is identical= with the possibility which is in the agent. Besides, the possibility which according to the philosophers is in the agent is not only a rational judgement, but refers to something outside the soul. Therefore his argument does not gain by assimilating one of these two possibilities to the other. And since Ghazali knew that all these arguments have no other effect than to bring doubts and perplexity to those who cannot solve them-which is an act of wicked sophists, he says:
And if it is said you have taken good care in all your objections to oppose the difficulties by other difficulties, but nothing of what you yourself have adduced is free from difficulty, we answer: the objections do show the falsity of an argument, no doubt, and certain aspects of the problem are solved in stating the opposite view and its foundation. We have not committed ourselves to anything more than to upsetting their theories, and to showing the faults in the consequence of their proofs so as to demonstrate their incoherence. We do not seek to attack from any definite point of view, and we shall not transgress the aim of this book, nor give full proofs for the temporal production of the world, for our intention is merely to refute their alleged knowledge of its eternity. But after finishing this book we shall, if it pleases God, devote a work to establishing the doctrine of truth, and we call it ‘The Golden Mean in Dogmatic Beliefs’,’ in which we shall be engaged in building up, as in this book we have been in destroying.
I say:
To oppose difficulty with difficulty does not bring about destruction, but only perplexity and doubts in him who acts in this way, for why should he think one of the two conflicting theories reasonable and the opposite one vain? Most of the arguments with which this man Ghazali opposes the philosophers are doubts which arise when certain parts of the doctrine of the philosophers come into conflict with others, and when those differences are compared with each other; but this is an imperfect refutation. A perfect refutation would be one that succeeded in showing the futility of their system according to the facts themselves, not such a one as, for instance, his assumption that it is permissible for the opponents of the philosophers to claim that possibility is a mental concept in the same way as the philosophers claim this for the universal. For if the truth of this comparison between the two were conceded, it would not follow that it was untrue that possibility was a concept dependent on reality, but only either that the universal existed in the mind only was not true, or that possibility existed in the mind only was not true. Indeed, it would have been necessary for him to begin by establishing the truth, before starting to perplex and confuse his readers, for they might die before they could get hold of that book, or he might have died himself before writing it. But this book has not yet come into my hands’ and perhaps he never composed it, and he only says that he does not base this present book on any doctrine, in order that it should not be thought that he based it on that of the Ash’arites. It appears from the books ascribed to him that in metaphysics he recurs to the philosophers. And of all his books this is most clearly shown and most truly proved in his book called The Niche for Lights.