THE LOGICAL ROLE OF THE ARGUMENT FROM TIME IN THE TAHAFUT'S SECOND PROOF FOR THE WORLD'S PRE‐ETERNITY

Of the four proofs reported and discussed by Al-Ghazili in his Tahafut al-Faldsifah (The Collapse of the Philosophers) for the world’s pre-eternity, the second proof 1 has generally been regarded as the argument from time, 2 and with some justification. For, to begin with, the proof makes use of Aristotle’s argument in the Physics, 3 and this argument is logically central to the whole proof. Moreover, and perhaps for this very reason, the discussions that follow both in Al-GhazHli’s Tahdfut al-Faldsifah and Ibn Rushd’s Tahafut al-Taluifut 4 concentrate on this aspect of the proof, the argument from time. For time, according to the Aristotelian argument, is the measure of motion, and if time is eternal, motion must be eternal. The proof makes explicit what this in turn entails, the eternity of that which is in motion, i.e., the world. Al-GhazBli in his response to the proof neither challenges the Aristotelian definition of time as the measure of motion 5 nor does he question the legitimacy of the inference of the eternity of motion from the eternity of time. 6 He only argues that time and the world were created together: God precedes the world in a non-temporal sense of “before.” 7 The rest of the discussions in the Talujfuts take up this issue and debate the question whether time can have a beginning. 8 For Ibn Rushd, a first moment of time is iinpossible since the moment, the “now,” unlike the physical point, is not static and must allvays have a “before“ as well as an “after.” 9 But this very pre-occupation with the nature of time detracts from the actual role the argument from time plays in the proof. For the proof has to be considered in the peculiar manner in which it is formulated in