The philosophy and theology of Averroes

it. The two parties are agreed in calling this Eternal. This extreme can be reached by logic. This is God, the Creator, Inventor, and Preserver of all. The medial kind of creation is that which has neither been made from nothing, "matter," nor has time preceded it, but it has been created bv some generative cause. In this is included the whole world. Again they all agree on the existence of all the three categories of the universe. The Mutakallimun admit, or they ought to admit, that before the universe there was no time, for according to them time is contemporaneous with motion and body. They are also agreed with the Ancients that future time and creation have no end, but they differ as to past time and RELIG10K AND PHILOSOPHY 39 Its creation. The Mutakallimun are of opinion that it had a beginning. This is the belief of Plato and his disciples, while Aristotle mid his followers are of opinion that it had no beginning, just as the future has no end. It is clear that the last mentioned kind of creation resembles both the originated and the eternal creation. So one who thinks that in the past creation there are more characteristics of the eternal than the originated takes it to be eternal and vice versa. But in reality it is neither truly originated nor eternal. For the originated creation is necessarily subject to destruction while the eternal is without a eause. There are some, for example, Plato and his followers, who have called it infinitely originated, for according to them time has no end. There is not, here so great a difference about the universe, for it to be made the basis of a charge of infidelity.…