Tahafut_al-Tahafut-transl-Engl-van-den-Bergh

I say:
The third proof is that the possibility of its existence does
not end, and that therefore its possible existence may
conform to the possibility.’ But this argument has no force,
for we regard it as impossible that the world should not have
begun, but we do not regard it as impossible that it should
last eternally, if God should make it last eternally, for it is not
necessary that what begins has also an end, although it is
necessary for an act to have a beginning and an initial term.
Only Abu Hudhail al-Allaf thought that the world must needs
have an end, and he said that, as in the past infinite circular
movements are impossible, so they are in the future s but
this is wrong, for the whole of the future never enters into
existence either simultaneously or successively, whereas the
whole of the past is there simultaneously but not
successively.’ And since it is clear that we do not regard the
incorruptibility of the world as impossible from a rational
point of view-we regard indeed its incorruptibility and
corruptibility as equally possible-we know only through the
Divine Law which of the two possibilities will be realized.
Therefore let us not try to solve this problem by mere
reason!
His assertion that the argument of the philosophers for the eternity of
the world in the past applies also to its eternity in the future is true, and
equally the second argument applies to both cases. But his assertion that
the third argument is not equally valid for the future and for the past, that
indeed we regard the becoming of the world in the past as impossible, but
that with the exception of Abu Hudhail al-Allaf, who thought that the
eternity of the world was impossible in either direction, we do not regard
its eternity in the future as absolutely impossible, is not true. For when it
was conceded to the philosophers that the possibility of the world had no
beginning and that with this possibility a condition of extension, which
could measure this possibility, was connected in the same way as this
condition of extension is connected with the possible existent, when it is
actualized, and it was also evident that this extension had no initial term,
the philosophers were convinced that time had no initial term, for this
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