The Core of the Dispute

Ibn Rushd tries to defend the philosophers by saying that Abu Hamid did not answer the real problem. In his view, once a being is described by multiple attributes, there is composition, and composition cannot belong to the Necessary Existent by Himself. Ibn Taymiyyah replies that this whole argument rests on vague wording, especially the word “composition.” He says the philosophers use this word in a loose and misleading way, then build major claims on it without first making its meaning clear.

For Ibn Taymiyyah, the central point is simple: affirming that Allah has a true essence and true necessary attributes does not mean that He was put together by someone, nor that there were separate things later joined into one. Rather, it only means that His essence is necessarily described by attributes of perfection, such as life, knowledge, and power. That does not make Him composite in the sense that would require a composer.

Ibn Rushd’s First Claim About “Composition”

Ibn Rushd objects to Abu Hamid by saying that “composed” is not like “existent.” He says it is closer to “moved.” His point is that “existent” can be divided into what exists through itself and what exists through something else, but “composed” does not work like that. In his view, once something is called composed, that already means it depends on something that brought the composition about.

Ibn Taymiyyah replies that this misses the real issue. The dispute is not about comparing words as words. It is about meanings. The real question is whether an eternal essence, necessarily described by its attributes, needs something outside itself to join essence and attributes together. Ibn Taymiyyah says no. Just as something may exist by itself without an external maker, an essence may also be described by its necessary attributes without an outside agent making that happen.

So even if Ibn Rushd wants to treat “composed” like “moved,” that still does not prove his case. If by composition he means an actual act done by an external composer, then no one affirms that for Allah. If he only means an essence described by necessary attributes, then nothing in that proves need, dependence, or origination.

Ibn Rushd’s Claim That Composition Cannot Be Self Existing

Ibn Rushd says composition does not divide into something composed by itself and something composed by another, unlike existence, which can divide into what exists through itself and what exists through another. He thinks composition always points to dependence.

Ibn Taymiyyah answers that Abu Hamid and others only used the philosophers’ own terminology against them. If the philosophers insist on calling an essence with attributes “composed,” then they cannot simply declare that composition never divides into necessary and contingent. Once they use the word that broadly, they have no proof that every such “composition” must be caused by another. So either they stop calling the affirmation of attributes “composition,” in which case their argument collapses, or they keep using the word, in which case their claim that all composition implies dependence is false.

Ibn Rushd’s Analogy With Motion

Ibn Rushd then argues that if one accepts something “composed by itself,” one could also accept “something moving by itself.” And if one accepts that, then one might even accept “something nonexistent by itself” coming into existence by itself. He is trying to show that Abu Hamid’s answer opens the door to absurdity.

Ibn Taymiyyah breaks this down carefully. First, he says the opening step is unproven. There is no reason why affirming an essence with necessary attributes must lead to affirming self motion. That is just a verbal leap, not a proof.

Then he says that even if the comparison is pushed further, it still fails. If someone says that a being has its own necessary attributes, that does not automatically mean it performs actions from itself in the same way. But even if the argument did lead to affirming actions from Allah’s essence, Ibn Taymiyyah says this would not be a problem. Rather, it would support the affirmation of Allah’s actions, which arise from His essence by His will.

So Ibn Rushd’s analogy does not harm the affirmers of attributes. At best, it either proves nothing, or it ends up helping the position that Allah truly acts.

Ibn Rushd’s Argument About the Nonexistent

Ibn Rushd then says that if something moves by itself, then by the same pattern one could say a nonexistent thing brings itself into existence, since existence is the transition from potential to actual. He wants to show that self movement and self origination both lead to contradiction.

Ibn Taymiyyah replies by asking for precision. Does Ibn Rushd mean that the nonexistent itself produces its own existence? If so, that is plainly impossible, because sheer nonexistence has no reality at all and cannot produce anything. Or does he mean that something existing brings about a motion or event that previously did not exist? If that is what he means, then this is entirely different. In that case, an existing subject is producing an occurent event, and that is not the same as a nonexistent thing creating itself.

He then explains that potential does not belong to sheer nonexistence. Potential belongs to an existing thing that can receive or produce something further. A seed has the potential for a plant. A drop has the potential for later stages of growth. The potential is in an existing subject, not in a nonexistent thing. So Ibn Rushd’s analogy is false from the start.

Ibn Rushd’s Claim That Every Mover Needs Another Mover

Ibn Rushd argues that every moving thing needs a mover because the moving thing exists together with a capacity for motion, and therefore motion must come from something else. He wants to preserve the philosophers’ principle that motion always requires an external mover.

Ibn Taymiyyah challenges this directly. He asks whether it is possible for something that was not moving and then moved to move by itself. If Ibn Rushd says yes, then his own argument falls apart. If he says no, then the motion must either come from the thing itself or from another. If from itself, the philosopher’s claim is false. If from another, then the same question applies to that other thing. This leads to an endless problem for the philosophers.

Then Ibn Taymiyyah presses further. If the cause of motion is eternal and complete, then its effect should exist with it eternally as well, because a complete cause cannot be delayed from its effect. But motion occurs bit by bit, with one part after another. So an eternal complete cause cannot explain successive temporal motion. If the philosophers allow a delayed effect from a complete eternal cause, then they destroy one of their own main principles. If they deny it, then they cannot explain the motions they affirm.

Ibn Taymiyyah’s Refutation of the Philosophers on Eternal Motion

Here Ibn Taymiyyah broadens the critique. He says the philosophers claim that emergent events can come from a being in whom nothing emergent occurs. But this is incoherent. If no new act, will, or relation ever occurs in the cause, then no new effect can come from it. A fixed cause that never changes cannot produce newly arising events unless one accepts that events happen with no real cause at all.

He says this is exactly the crisis that Ibn Rushd and others were forced to admit. They say action implies change, and change needs a changer, but they also say the eternal cannot change. So they are trapped. They need new events in the universe, but they deny anything new in the first cause. Ibn Taymiyyah says their sharpest minds admitted the difficulty because the contradiction is real.

The Philosophers’ View of the Heavens and Why Ibn Taymiyyah Rejects It

Ibn Taymiyyah then turns to their cosmology. He says the philosophers claimed that the heavens move out of love, imitation, or desire for the Necessary Being or the intellect. In this account, the first cause does not truly act on the heavens as an active agent. Rather, it serves more like a final cause, something loved or desired, and the heavens move seeking resemblance to it.

Ibn Taymiyyah says this has no proof. But even if it were granted, it still would not solve the problem. Motion does not only need a goal. It also needs an origin. So what is the active cause of the heavens’ motion?

If they say the heavenly soul causes its own thoughts and desires, then they have accepted self movement, which goes against their own rule. If they say something else caused those new thoughts and desires, then the same question returns about that cause. If they say nothing changed, then events would occur without any cause. If they say some new readiness or potential appeared, then that new readiness itself needs a cause. So in every direction, the philosophers’ system breaks down.

Ibn Rushd’s Admission Against the Philosophers

Ibn Taymiyyah notes that Ibn Rushd himself admitted that the philosophers face an even stronger problem than the theologians. Ibn Rushd says that whenever an actor performs a first act, there must be some new condition, relation, or state connected to that act. That emergent condition must either be in the actor, in the thing acted upon, or in both. If every such condition needs a cause, then either that cause is another actor, in which case the first actor is no longer first, or the actor causes the condition in himself, in which case there is already an earlier act before the supposed first act.

Ibn Taymiyyah seizes on this admission. He says Ibn Rushd used it to attack the mutakallimun, but it rebounds more strongly against the philosophers. They accuse others of accepting events without causes, yet their own view ends in something even worse: events without any true actor at all, or events from an actor without any new act or state in him, even though they themselves admit that this makes no sense.

Ibn Rushd’s Argument About Parts and Mutual Conditioning

Ibn Rushd also argues that if essence and attributes are called parts, then one must ask whether each is a condition for the other, neither is, or only one is. He says the first case cannot be eternal, because the composition would be a condition for the existence of the parts, and then neither the parts nor the composition could explain the other.

Ibn Taymiyyah replies that this entire way of speaking is artificial. Ordinary language does not describe an essence with attributes as a thing “composed of parts” in this sense. This is technical language invented by the philosophers and some theologians. So once again, the dispute is driven by terminology, not clear meaning.

Still, even using their language, Ibn Taymiyyah says the objection fails. There is no doubt that the essence cannot exist without its necessary attributes, and the attributes cannot exist without the essence. But this is mutual necessary coexistence, not the dependence of an effect upon an external cause. One is a condition for the other in the sense that neither exists separately, not in the sense that one produces the other. Mutual necessary coexistence is possible. What is impossible is sequential dependence where each waits upon the other as cause and effect.

So if one insists on calling the essence and attributes “parts,” or their necessary coexistence “composition,” this still does not prove need for a maker, actor, or external cause.

Ibn Taymiyyah’s Main Principle in the Whole Debate

The heart of Ibn Taymiyyah’s refutation is that the philosophers confuse two very different kinds of dependence. One is the dependence of a created thing upon its creator, or an effect upon its acting cause. The other is the necessary inseparability of an essence and its attributes. These are not the same.

Allah’s essence is not a bare reality to which attributes are later added. Nor are His attributes independent entities joined onto Him by another. Rather, He is the Necessary Being whose essence is never without the attributes of perfection. If someone calls that “composition,” the label changes nothing. It does not make the essence caused, originated, or in need of one who put it together.

So Ibn Taymiyyah’s position is that the philosophers win an argument only by changing names and then treating the changed name as if it already proved their conclusion. That is why he keeps saying that the problem lies in vague and deceptive wording.

The Outcome of the Debate

Ibn Rushd’s argument can be reduced to this: if affirming attributes means composition, then the Necessary Being would become dependent, and whatever is dependent is not necessary by itself. From there he tries to strengthen the case through analogies with motion, nonexistence, and the structure of cause and effect.

Ibn Taymiyyah’s answer is that every step of this depends on an unclear use of words. “Composition” in the real sense of something put together by another is not what the affirmers of attributes mean at all. And if “composition” only means an essence inseparable from its necessary attributes, then there is nothing in that which proves contingency or need. Rather, it is exactly what must be affirmed for the Lord, because a bare essence without attributes is impossible in itself, let alone worthy of being called the Necessary Being.

So Ibn Taymiyyah turns the whole debate around. Instead of the affirmers of attributes being trapped by “composition,” it is the philosophers who are trapped by their own principles. They cannot explain occurent events, motion, action, or change without either admitting real actions from the divine essence, or falling into the absurdity of events without a true cause. In this way, he holds that Abu Hamid’s answer is stronger than Ibn Rushd admitted, and that the philosophers’ objection collapses once the vague wording is stripped away.

Ibn Taymiyyah’s Response to Ibn Rushd and Clarification of the Misuse of the Word “Composition”

What Abu Hamid mentioned is sound and refutes the position of the philosophers, while what Ibn Rushd said stems from ambiguity and vagueness in language. His argument in this matter contains more deception than the argument of Ibn Sina himself, who acknowledged its weakness and invalidity.

The philosophers had said to Abu Hamid and those who affirm the attributes: if you affirm an essence and an attribute, and say that the attribute exists in the essence, then this is composition, and every composed thing needs a composer.

Abu Hamid responded: the one who says, “Every composed thing needs a composer,” is like the one who says, “Every existent needs one who made it exist.”

What he meant by this was that what they are calling “composition” does not mean that there was something scattered which someone combined, nor is there something that can even be separated in the first place. The discussion is only about the affirmation of the necessary attributes of the Necessary Being, such as life, knowledge, and power. If these attributes necessarily belong to the pre-eternal self-sufficient being, then they cannot be separated from Him, nor can they exist without Him, nor can He exist without them.

So there are not two things that were separate and then combined.

The word “composed” originally refers to something that has been combined, like when someone says, “I combined it, so it is composed,” or “I separated it, so it is separated,” or “I gathered it, so it is gathered,” or “I united it, so it is united,” or “I moved it, so it is moved.”

You might say, “I fixed the door in its place.” Allah says: “In whatever form He willed, He fashioned you” (al-Infitar: 8). This is what “composed” means in language. But in the terminology of the philosophers and theologians, it came to refer to other meanings as well, beyond simply what was once scattered and then gathered. For example, they might say: a body is either simple or composed, by “simple” they mean something whose parts are all alike, like water or air.

By “composed” they mean something with different parts, like a human being. And they might say: every body is composed of its parts, because this part is not that part, even if they believe the parts were never separated, and that the body has always been like that. They argue about whether the body is composed of indivisible atoms, or of matter and form, or neither, though they agree that some bodies were never composed from parts that were once separate.

Sometimes, they mean by “composed” a being that is composed of attributes, like when they say: the human being is composed of genus and differentia, an animal that speaks. These two attributes never exist apart from one another.

You cannot have “speaker” without “animal,” and you cannot have “animal” without either “speaker” or something else in its place, like “neighing” and the like.

So Abu Hamid and others spoke to them using their own terminology: a being described by necessary attributes is called composed. Then they said to them: you claimed that this thing you call “composition” is impossible in the Necessary Being. But your claim that “every composed thing needs a composer” is a fallacy arising from vagueness in the term “composed.”

Abu Hamid and others never conceded that there is any composition in the sense of an act of composing, so that it could be said, “a composed thing needs a composer.” Rather, what exists is an essence described by necessary attributes. So if someone says: “Every being described by necessary attributes needs a composer to combine essence and attributes,” that statement is false. Their claim, “Every composed thing needs a composer,” falls into that category.

The same applies when someone says, “Every combination needs a combiner.” Many people use this kind of speech to deny certain meanings which they call “combination” or “composition,” and then they base their argument just on the word itself without understanding its meaning.

So if someone calls such a thing composition or combination, he must be asked: do you mean by that that there is something which was made by a composer or combiner, or do you mean there is simply an essence described by attributes?

If the first, then that is rejected, no one in all of Allah’s creation says that Allah’s necessary attributes depend on a doer who combines and composes between the essence and the attributes.

If you mean the second, then that is accepted, but you have no proof that the pre-eternal essence, which necessarily includes its attributes, needs someone to compose those attributes into it. That is why Abu Hamid said: this is like someone saying, “Every existent needs one who made it exist.” If he had said, “needs a finder,” that would be closer to the original wording.

And this is accurate, because “existent” is the passive form of the verb “to find”, so the “finder” is the one who causes something to exist. So if someone says, “Every existent needs a finder or maker,” just based on the word alone, it is like saying, “Every composed thing needs a composer,” based on the word alone. But the word “existent” usually means something that is real and established in itself, not necessarily something that was made to exist by another.

In the same way, when they say “composed,” they mean something described by attributes that exist in it, or something with multiple meanings or multiplicity, not something put together by someone else. So what these people fell into regarding the word “composition” or “combination” is exactly like what others fell into with the words “specification” and “determination.” It is all the same pattern. Let the smart one pay attention to this, it will resolve many confusions.

Answering Ibn Rushd’s Objection

As for Ibn Rushd’s objection to Abu Hamid, where he said: “Composed is not like existent, but like moved”,

The response has several parts:

First: the issue is not about comparing words, but about the actual meanings. The point is that the pre-eternal essence which necessarily has attributes does not need an external thing to combine the essence and the attributes, just as something that exists in reality does not need something else to make it exist. It may simply exist by itself, without needing a doer. In the same way, its being described with attributes does not require a doer.

Second: even if you say that the word “composed” is like “moved,” and that it is an extra attribute added to the thing, then if you mean it is something added to the essence and the attribute and their connection, that is false. And if you mean it is simply the attribute existing in the essence, or the attribute that is part of the essence, then there is nothing in that which proves that it is something that must be done by an external doer.

Third: if “moved” means something moved by something else, then this is not like what is being argued here. No one agrees that in the pre-eternal essence, described by its necessary attributes, there is something that someone else composed. If you just mean general motion, then the meaning of your argument becomes: the connection between an essence and its attributes is like motion in a moving thing, and in neither of them is there anything that proves the described needs something separate from it.

As for his statement: “It does not divide into composed by itself and composed by another, the way existence divides into things that need something else and one that exists on its own”,

We say to him: these Muslims, like Abu Hamid and others, were using your terminology when they said that an attribute existing in a described thing is called composition. So they say, according to your terms, that composition divides into what is composed by itself and what is composed by another.

The truth is, if the affirmation of attributes is what you are calling composition, then we do not accept your claim that composition cannot be divided into necessary and contingent. But if you do not call that composition, then your entire argument falls apart. Yet you chose to call it composition and then denied it, so your statement, “composition does not divide,” is false and rejected.

As for his statement, “Someone could say: if there is something composed by itself, then there could be something moving by itself, and if there is something moving by itself, then there could be something nonexistent by itself”,

We respond in several ways:

First: the first premise is rejected. What proof is there that if there is an essence described by its necessary attributes, then there must also be an essence that moves by its own motion? That is nothing but a verbal comparison.

Second: what you are really saying is, “if composition needs a composer, then motion needs a mover.” If you mean that each has a doer, then fine. But if you mean just composition and just motion, then you are saying that if there is something described by attributes in itself, then there must also be a doer who moves by itself. If what you are really saying is, “if it has attributes from itself, then it must also do actions from itself,” we say: either that conclusion is valid or not. If it is not, then it proves nothing. If it is valid, then it supports the affirmation of Allah’s actions, that His actions come from His essence. So what is wrong with that if the conclusion is valid?

Third: as for his statement, “And if there is something moving by itself, then there will be something nonexistent by itself, because the existence of the nonexistent is the transition from potential to actual,”,

We say: clarify what you mean. Do you mean that the very nonexistent thing brings itself into being? Or that the motion, which did not yet exist, comes from the moving being itself?

If you mean the first, that is nonsense. The nonexistent has no reality at all, so it cannot cause itself or anything else to exist. Its existence coming from itself is impossible by necessity. That a nonexistent thing brings itself into being is plainly false.

If you mean the second, that a moving thing produces the movement that did not yet exist, then the cause and the effect are the same, and that is possible. So the claim that this leads to saying the nonexistent thing creates itself is false and rejected.

As for his statement, “The existence of the nonexistent is the transition from potential to actual, and the same is true of motion and the moving object”,

We say: at most, this shows that there is one point of similarity. But where is the proof that if two things share in one aspect, they must share in all aspects, especially when the difference is obvious?

And his statement, “The existence of the nonexistent is the transition from potential to actual,” should not be understood as saying that the nonexistent had within itself a potential that led to its existence, for the nonexistent is not in anything and has nothing within it.

Rather, we say that the thing from which something comes into being had that potential. For example, the drop of fluid has the potential to become a clot. The seed has the potential to become a plant. The pit has the potential to become a palm tree. So the thing that has potential is not the nonexistent, but the thing from which the existent emerged.

As for motion and the moving thing, the moving thing itself contains the potential that leads to motion. The moving thing is like the subject in which an accident that did not previously exist comes to exist, just like colour appears in coloured things, taste in what is tasted, life in the living. Motion appears in what moves. The subject of these attributes and motions was capable of receiving them and had the potential for them.

As for the things that did not exist and then came to exist, they had no potential or anything else within themselves.

So comparing the existence of the nonexistent from itself to the appearance of motion from the moving thing is a completely false analogy. The cause may be an active cause or a potential one. If someone said that the existent, or the body, or the thing that exists on its own, or anything similar, can receive attributes and accidents like motions, and therefore the nonexistent can receive attributes and motions, that would be an extremely corrupt statement.

So how much worse is it if someone says: if a moving thing acts by itself to produce motion, then the nonexistent must act by itself to bring itself into being? No, it is said: an agent may act upon something else. As for acting upon itself, that is impossible.

So if someone said: if a moving being can produce motion, then a nonexistent being can produce motion, that is false. How much worse, then, to say that it can produce itself?

As for his statement, “Every existent that was not at some time existent in potential and then became actual, exists by itself. But the moving thing exists along with the power to move, so every moving thing needs a mover”,

We say: even if we accept from you that a moving thing exists with the power to move, who said that this motion requires an external mover?

Then we ask you: is it possible for something that is now moving to move by itself after previously not moving?

If you say yes, your entire argument collapses, because then it is possible for a thing to move by itself before it moved, and before the supposed power to move acted upon it.

Refutation of the Philosophers’ Argument About Composition and the Eternity of Motion

If you say: “It is not possible for something to move by itself after not having moved,” then we say: its motion must either be from itself or from something else.

If it is from itself, then the motion comes from the very moving thing, and your argument is false.

If it is from something else, and that other thing is itself moving, then the same question applies to it.

And if that other thing is not moving, then it would mean that continuous motions are coming from something that is not moving, and this is what the philosophers claim. But it is false.

That is because the parts of motion occur one after another. So whatever causes each part of the motion, it cannot be a complete cause existing eternally. If it were, then the effect would have to exist with it at the same time, because a complete cause cannot be separated from its effect.

This would lead to the conclusion that what is originated is also eternal, which is impossible.

Or, if the complete cause does not require simultaneity with its effect, then it would be allowed for motions to occur later even though their cause is eternal, and it would be allowed for something to begin moving after not moving without any emergent cause, this would destroy the philosophers’ own position.

And if the complete cause is not eternal, then it must be originated, and then the question about its origin is exactly like the question about what it caused.

It becomes impossible, therefore, for either that cause or its result to come from an eternal complete cause.

If the actor has no emergent act in himself, then nothing emergent can come from him. Therefore, it is impossible for motion to come from something not in motion.

Ibn Rushd’s Admission and the Philosophers’ Contradictions

Ibn Rushd and others from among the philosophers and theologians admitted this problem. He said that the philosophers rely on two things:

First, they say: action necessarily involves change, and everything that changes must have a changer.

Second, they say: the eternal cannot change in any way.

He added: “This is all extremely hard to explain.”

Ibn Taymiyyah says: this topic, the origination of events from a being in whom nothing emergent occurs, is something their sharpest minds admitted was hard and irrational. Ibn Rushd and ar-Razi both mentioned this.

These philosophers claim that the being that moves the heavens experiences emergent thoughts and desires, which cause motion.

They claim that what moves it is the intellect, or the Necessary Being, whom the heavens seek to imitate by expressing what is in them of position and motion.

And that the action of the Necessary or the intellect is like the way the beloved moves the lover, or the desired thing moves the one who desires it. There is no real action from the mover at all, they say that he is loved, so the heavens move to imitate him.

This is how Aristotle and his followers tried to prove a first cause, that above the heavens is something that causes their movement.

We could respond to this in many ways, but this is not the place for a detailed discussion. What we say is: the belief that the heavens move in order to imitate the Necessary Being, or to express what is in them, has no evidence. And there are many proofs against it, though this is not the place to go into them.

So if they say: this only shows the final cause of motion,

We say: then what is the active cause of the motion of the heavens?

Even if motion needs a goal, it also necessarily needs an origin.

So if they say: the being that owns the heavens moves them,

We say: what causes the being to have these motions like thoughts and desires? These things did not exist, and then they did, so what brought about this change?

If they say: the being itself produced these things,

Then they have claimed it moves itself, which goes against their own view.

If they say: something else caused it,

We say: then the same question applies to that cause. If it changed, then what caused its change?

If they say: nothing changed, it remained always the same,

Then it leads to the conclusion that events occur with no cause. And if they say that what moves the being is a complete cause from eternity, then the thoughts and desires in the being should also exist eternally. But those are emergently originated, this leads to a contradiction.

If they say: something emergent happened which made the mover act,

Then they must answer what caused that emergent thing.

If they say: the being became ready to receive something that gave rise to its thoughts and desires,

We say: that potential is also occurent, and the question about what caused it is the same. So either events happen with no cause, or events come from something that moves. Either way, their argument fails.

They themselves admit that the first option is known to be false by necessity, so they are forced to accept the second, and that destroys their own view. They have placed a stronger objection on themselves than the one they placed on their opponents. Ibn Rushd said that his fellow philosophers are even more flawed, because he said:

“What the Ashʿaris cannot escape is the belief of a first actor and a first action. They cannot claim that the state of the actor at the time of doing something is exactly the same as before that action, because there must necessarily be some emergent condition or relationship. And that emergent condition must either be in the actor, or the acted upon, or both. And if we insist that every emergent condition must have an actor, then that actor must either be someone else, in which case the original actor is not the first, or it must be the actor himself, and then the first action is not actually the first, because the actor acted to bring about the condition for his own action before he did the action itself.”

He said: “This is necessarily the case, unless one claims that some emergent conditions in an actor do not need a cause. But this is hard to accept, unless you believe that some things just happen on their own. And that is the view of the ancient philosophers who denied the existence of any creator, and that is a view whose falseness is obvious.”

So we say to him: you accused the theologians of affirming that something can happen without a cause, and said this is necessarily false. But you end up with something worse: you have events occurring without any actor at all. You yourself said that this is an belief whose falsehood is plain and obvious.

So we ask you: these observable events, do they have an actor, or not?

If you say they do not, then you have committed to that obviously false view.

If you say they do, then did this actor do these things without any change in himself?

If you say: yes,

Then are these actions eternal, or did they begin at some point?

If you say: they began,

Then you have accepted your opponent’s view.

If you say: they are eternal,

Then all events are now said to come from an actor without any change in him, and you yourself said it is impossible for the state of the actor to remain exactly the same before and after the event. So you must admit that the state of the actor during the events of the Flood, for example, is not the same as it was during the events before the Flood, because those events are different.

And if it is possible for the actor’s state to be the same while producing different events, then it is also possible for the same state to bring about continuous emergent events, like the Flood, which had unique events that had never occurred before.

There is no difference between initiating that and initiating something else. If you say the reason for the emergent events is changes in the heavens, then the question about those heavenly changes is the same as the question about changes in the lower universe.

If you say: something emergent happened that caused these events,

We ask: who caused that emergent thing?

If you say: the first cause did,

Then the original problem comes back again.

If you say: someone else did,

Then you’ve returned to saying that events occur without an actor.

If you admit that nothing was done until something emergent happened in the actor, then you have abandoned your original claim.

Also, an actor who possesses everything required to act must either be able to produce an effect without any emergent cause, or not.

If yes, then this is the view of your opponents, which you said is necessarily false.

If not, then the effect must come into being at the same time as the actor, with nothing coming after. So it is impossible for anything to come from the actor later on. But you and your fellow philosophers claim that the first cause is a complete cause, and a complete cause cannot have any delay between it and its effect.

So anything that came later is not from the first cause.

And it cannot come from something else, because the same argument would apply to that other thing.

So it must follow that all events came into existence without any cause.

This is the unavoidable conclusion of the so-called divine philosophers, just as it is the conclusion of their fellow materialist philosophers.

And this is one of the most obviously false beliefs known by necessity. The details of these issues are discussed elsewhere, but the point here is to show the kind of trickery they use through vague words, like the word “composition,” and how they do the same with words like “specification” and “specifier.” In all of this, the speech of Abu Hamid and his likes is stronger and better.

On the Use of the Word “Composition” and the Rebuttal of Ibn Rushd’s Understanding

As for what Ibn Rushd said: “We must either say that each part is a condition for the existence of the other, or that neither is, or that only one is a condition for the other without the reverse.”

And he said: “The first case cannot be eternal, because the composition itself is a condition for the existence of the parts. It is not possible that the parts are the cause of the composition, or that the composition causes itself.”

We say: calling this “composition” and “parts” is not the language of any human society. People do not speak this way. No human language calls a thing described by attributes “composed” of them, or says that the attributes are “parts” of it. When we speak to you using your terminology, you already know that by “composition” you only mean that the essence has necessary attributes, or that it includes certain meanings, or that there are combined things within it. You do not mean that there is a composer who assembled them.

No one who accepts your term, calling the necessary essence with its attributes “composed,” means that anyone composed it. No sane person says that. And you yourselves do not claim that the word alone proves the existence of a composer. Rather, you try to prove it either through the approach of Ibn Sina and others, which we already refuted, or through the approach of the Muʿtazilah, which Ibn Rushd preferred while admitting that Ibn Sina’s approach is invalid.

So if what is meant by the word “composition” is what you already defined, then we know that an essence with necessary attributes, or one that contains necessary meanings, is not something whose combination with those attributes needs an external actor. No one says that the attributes are the cause of the combination, or that the combination causes itself.

What you call “composition” here is simply one of the necessary aspects of the being who exists by Himself. The Necessary Being must be described with the attributes that necessarily belong to Him, and there is no acting cause for this. As for his claim that the composition is a condition for the existence of the parts,

We say: there is no doubt that the essence cannot exist without its necessary attributes, and the attributes cannot exist without the essence. Their coexistence is a condition for both, and each is a condition for the other. But none of that is caused by a separate agent, and none of them need something external.

The dependence of one on the other is a case of mutual dependence, not sequential dependence. Mutual dependence is possible. Sequential dependence is not.

Things that necessarily go together only exist together, and one is not the cause of the other. If they are all necessary in existence, then they need no cause at all. The essence that cannot cease to exist, along with its necessary attributes, is the true Necessary Being. As for the belief of just some bare essence existing in the universe without attributes, that is impossible by its very nature, let alone being the Necessary Being.

So whether you call the essence with its necessary attributes “composed” or not, this does not make it dependent, and it does not make either the essence or the attributes in need of a cause, an acting agent, or anything similar.

If you say that one of them depends on the other and cannot exist without it, this does not prove the need for a creator. It only proves that the essence always has its attributes, and the attributes cannot exist without the essence.

And if someone calls this “dependence,” and the attributes “parts,” and the whole thing “composition,” there is nothing in that wording that proves the described thing needs a maker.

What is being called “dependence” here is not the same as the dependence of the created on the creator, or the effect on the acting cause, it is just necessary coexistence.

Whoever uses the word “dependence” still cannot explain it as anything but the dependence of a condition on what it conditions, and vice versa.

Understood. Here’s the best possible translation of the passage you provided, with accurate structure, flowing style, and footnotes fully translated next to the sentences they belong to, all placed within clear section headings as requested.

The Meaning Necessarily Connected to the Necessary Existent

This meaning is necessarily connected to the necessary existent; it is not impossible for Him. What is impossible is for Him to be in need of something separate from Him, such that the existence of the necessary would depend on something external. If that external thing were a cause for Him, then He would not exist by Himself, but rather be a possible being in need of a cause and actor.

And if it were said that the external is merely a condition for Him, while He is free of need for it, then anything whose existence depends on what it is not in need of cannot exist by itself. Therefore, it is not possible for the Creator, the Lord Most High, whose essence is described with the attributes of perfection, to be dependent upon anything external to Him, neither on an agent nor on a condition in any form.

This is the conclusion established by sound reasoning: that possible beings, which have no existence by themselves, do not exist except through something else. And whatever is outside them does not exist except by itself, and that “itself” is the essence described by its necessary attributes, not a mere abstract existence, nor a bare essence.

The False Claim that Self-Existent Beings Must Be Attribute-Free

As for the claim that what exists by itself must be an abstract existence and a bare essence, on the grounds that an essence described with attributes would need those attributes and thus not be self-existent, this is false. The created and originated beings did not depend on a bare essence, such that if one described them with attributes it would require dependency. Rather, they depended on something entirely outside themselves.

This belief can be expressed with different phrases: for example, saying “that which does not accept nonexistence,” or “that which exists by itself,” or “the necessary existent by itself,” and similar expressions. The meaning behind all these is the same. And it is well known that if what does not accept nonexistence is an essence described with attributes of perfection, then it is not valid to say: “Its being described with these attributes makes it dependent on them, so it becomes capable of nonexistence.” The falsehood of such a statement is self-evident.

It is just like saying: “When you say it exists by itself or is necessary by itself, then it must depend on itself, and anything dependent cannot be necessary by itself, but rather capable of nonexistence.” If this statement is invalid, the first one is even more invalid. For the attributes of perfection are included in what is meant by “itself.” So, if saying that it depends on itself does not negate its necessity of existence, then saying it depends on its attributes should all the more not negate its necessity.

The Confusion Around the Term “Parts”

Likewise, if someone says that it is made up of parts and is dependent on its parts, the answer is that a part of something, or a portion of it, or its attribute, all of that is included in what is meant by the thing itself. So, if someone says “it depends on itself,” and that does not invalidate its necessary existence, then saying it depends on its parts, attributes, or the like, should not invalidate it either.

Using the word “dependence” here is merely misleading and deceptive language. It creates the false impression of need to those unfamiliar with the reality. It is like someone saying “He is rich by himself,” and another replies, “So, he is poor to himself.” But His attributes are included in His essence. He is rich by Himself, and everything else is in need of Him.

Ibn Rushd’s Statement on the Problem of Attributes

Ibn Rushd said: “The critique made against those who deny the multiplicity of attributes is that they reduce all the different attributes to a single essence, so that the concepts of knowledge, will, and power all refer to one thing, and that knowledge is the same as the knower, and power is the same as the powerful, and will is the same as the one who wills.” He then said: “And the critique made against those who affirm attributes in addition to the essence is that the essence becomes a condition for the existence of the attributes, and the attributes become a condition for the perfection of the essence. So the combination becomes something necessary in existence, i.e., a single existent with no cause and no caused element.”

Then he said: “But this, in truth, cannot be answered if it is assumed that there is a necessary existent by itself. For it must be one in every aspect, and not composed at all, not from a condition and that which is conditioned, nor from a cause and that which is caused. For any such existent must either have its composition be necessary or possible.

If it is necessary, then it must be necessary by something else and not by itself, because it is difficult to conceive of a composed eternal being from its own essence without a composer, especially according to those who say that every accident is originated, because then composition would be an eternal accident. And if it is possible, then it would need something to necessitate the conjunction of the cause and the effect.”

The Philosophers’ Claim About the Impossibility of Self-Composed Eternal Beings

He also said: “Whether there can exist something composed from its own essence according to the philosophers, although they allow for eternal accidents, is not possible. For composition is a condition for its existence, and the parts cannot be said to bring about the composition, because the composition is itself a condition for the existence of the parts.”

He added: “This is like the parts of any natural composed being: when they are separated, the name applied to them is only by metaphor, like the word ‘hand’ used for the living human hand and for a severed hand. In fact, according to Aristotle, every composition is perishable, let alone being without a cause.” (Tahafut al-Tahafut, p. 496.)

He continued: “As for whether the approach of Ibn Sina in proving the necessary existent leads to denying an eternal composed being, that is not the case. Because if we suppose that the chain of possible beings ends at a necessary cause, then that necessary cause either has a cause or does not. And if it has a cause, then it ends at a necessary being with no cause.”

He said: “This only leads, by way of denying infinite regress, to the existence of a necessary being that has no acting cause, not to a necessary being that is absolutely simple in its existence.” (Tahafut al-Tahafut, p. 497.)

Then he said: “It is not impossible for knowledge and the knower to be the same. Rather, it is necessary that in such things, the concepts must ultimately be united. For if the knower knows by knowledge, then what makes the knower knowing is more deserving of being called knowing.”

Darʾ taʿāruḍ al-ʿaql wal-naql (3/402-436)