Abdal Hakim Murad - The Cambridge Companion to Islamic Theology

206 Ayman Shihadeh
accident known to be generated, rather than bodies as such, and consequently
the world as a whole, as in the conclusion. 34 Indeed, he points
out, it will still be conceivable for the world to be pre-eternal, involving
infinitely regressing series of temporally originated things (h _
awadith
la awwalalaha).
Later mutakallimun, as Averroes notes, became more aware of this
gap in the proof, and attempted, apparently starting from Juwaynı, to
address it by arguing that a pre-eternal series of accidents is inconceivable.
35 Several arguments are found in later works of kalam that support
this contention; the following two are recorded in a later Mu‘tazilite
source.
For instance, it is argued, rather opaquely, that the whole must be
characterised by the same attributes that necessarily characterise each of
its individual parts; for instance, if something consists entirely of black
parts, it too must be black. Therefore, since each part of the world is
generated and has a beginning, the whole world too must be generated
and have a beginning.
The infinite regress of accidents is also refuted using proofs from the
impossibility of an infinite number, some of which were apparently
adopted from John Philoponus (d. c. 570). 36 For instance, it is argued:
When today’s events are combined with past events, these will
increase; without today’s events, they will diminish. Increase and
diminution in what is infinite are inconceivable. This indicates that
[the series of past events] is finite with respect to its beginning. This
is the proof also for the finiteness of the magnitude of the earth and
other bodies; for it is possible to conceive of increase and diminution
in them. 37
Many later Ash‘arites adopted Juwaynı’s modified version of the
argument for creation ex nihilo, which most theologians treated as an
article of faith. Yet this doctrine soon became the centre of conflict
between the theologians and most philosophers, who defended the
pre-eternity of the world, as the interaction between the two traditions
increased. Doubts were raised around the arguments for
creation, to the extent that in one of his latest works Razı examines
all the relevant arguments and counterarguments and admits that
no rational or revealed evidence proves either the creation or pre-eternity
of the world. 38 Under his influence, it seems, Ibn Taymiyya asserts
that no rational or revealed evidence proves the inconceivability of
the infinite regress of accidents, apparently suspending judgement on
the subject.
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