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

and if you acknowledge an eternal which changes, nothing
prevents you from accepting this theory. ‘
If you replied: We only regard this as impossible,
because the temporal knowledge in His essence must either
derive from Himself or from something else; that it should
derive from Himself is impossible, for we have shown that
from the eternal no temporal can proceed and that God
cannot become active after having been at rest, for this
would imply a change, and we have established this in
treating the question of the temporal becoming of the world;
and if it were to arise in His essence from something else,
how could something else influence and change Him so that
His conditions changed as if under the power and necessity
of something different from Him? -we answer: Neither of
these alternatives is impossible, according to your doctrine.
As to your assertion that it is impossible that from the eternal
a temporal being should proceed, we refuted this sufficiently
when we treated this problem. According to you it is
impossible that from the eternal there should proceed a
temporal being which is the first of a series of temporal
beings and it is only impossible that there should be a first
temporal being. ‘ However, these temporal beings have no
infinite number of temporal causes, but by means of the
circular movement they terminate in something eternal which
is the soul and life of the sphere; and the soul of the sphere
is eternal and the circular movement arises temporally from
it and each part of this movement begins and ends, and that
which follows it is surely a new occurrence. Therefore,
according to you the temporal beings arise from the eternal. ‘
However, since the conditions of the eternal are uniform, the
emanation of temporal occurrences from Him will be
eternally uniform, just as the conditions of the movement are
uniform, since they proceed from an eternal being whose
conditions are uniform; and all the philosophical sects
acknowledge that from an eternal being a temporal being
can proceed, when this happens in a proportionate way and
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