It is God...

It is God; rather, who directly creates each and every action in the universe in each and every moment.

Therefore, with “nearly a quarter of the Incoherence devoted to the issue of whether the universe had a beginning in time…Ghazali ardently upholds the traditional kalam argument.”[^17] The kalam form of the cosmological argument was based in the traditional Ash‘arite (along with the Mu‘tazilah[^18] ) arguments for God’s existence - the demonstration of the universe as a created thing.[^19] Fakhry notes, The general procedure of the Mutakallims in proving the temporality of the universe considered in showing that the world, which they defined as everything other than God, was composed of atoms and accidents.

Now the accidents, they argued, cannot endure for two instants of time, but are continually created by God who creates or annihilates them at will.[^20] Though al-Ghazali did not assert this doctrine explicitly in his first discussion, it factors into his argument implicitly, along with appearing explicitly later in the philosopher’s question about an atom receiving whiteness or blackness from God’s will.

This is important to note, because, for the Ash‘arite theologian, the world of atoms and accidents was in a continuous state of change.[^21] A change that was directly actualized by the power and will of God alone. Al-Ghazali’s kalam cosmological argument for finite temporality of the universe can clearly be found in his Iqtisad and Jerusalem Letter , while it is only found implicitly in the Tahafut , and was diagramed by the following syllogism.

1- Whatever began to exist has a cause for its coming into being. (Premise) 2- The universe began to exist. (Premise) Therefore, the universe has a cause for coming into being. (From 1-2)[^22] Al-Ghazali, in accordance with common sense, perceived that the first premise is indisputable. Therefore, it became important to demonstrate the truth of the second premise - that the universe is finite and began to exist.

In order to do so, al-Ghazali used two lines of attack: first, showing that the philosophers had failed to demonstrate the impossibility of the creation of a temporal entity from an eternal being; second, that the beginning of the universe is demonstrable.[^23] Previous…