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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Critique of Marxist Philosophy Part 2 Contemporaneity Between Cause and Effect Since the existence of the effect is essentially linked to the existence of the cause, the cause is necessary for the effect and the effect must be contemporaneous with the cause so that its being and existence the linked to that cause. This is the law of contemporaneity between the cause and the effect.

Two arguments were forwarded to prove that it is possible for the effect to continue after its cause ceases to exist. (1) The first argument, put forward by theologians, rests on two idea. The first is that things need causes in order to come into existence; after its coming into being, a thing has no need for a cause. However, as pointed out earlier, a thing's need for a cause is not for its coming into existence, but because its existence is essentially linked to its specific cause.

The second notion is that the law of contemporaneity between the cause and the effect is not consistent with a certain group of phenomena in the universe. For example, a building erected by builders continues to exist even after all of them are gone and are no more alive. Al-Sadr states that in all such examples, the error lies in identifying the real causes.

(2) The other theory, suggested by the modem science of mechanics, assert that in the light of the laws of motion continuity of motion does not require a cause. According to the first law of motion, a body continues to move with a uniform velocity in a straight line, after an impulse is imparted to it, unless disturbed by an external force. According to al-Sadr such an assertion leads to an immediate cancellation of the principle of causality.

If it were possible for motion to continue without a cause, then it would also be possible for it to occur without a cause and for things to begin existing without a cause. The reason is that continuity of motion always involves a new coming into existence. According to al-Sadr, the experiments which suggest the first law of motion do not actually show that the external force is cause of motion.

It is possible, he says, that the real cause of ethereal is something that had existed all along; external causes act the force within the body and prepare it as cause (Muslim have believed that all accidental motion, including the mechanical motion of bodies, is produced by a force within bodies).