As a result...

As a result, al-Sadr finds the law of inertia to be incompatible with the law of causality. It is amazing that the author should consider the first law of motion as incompatible with the principle of causality. But that is because he, in the tradition of Mulla Sadra, considers motion as a continual renewal of existence, a continual recreation. Mechanics, on the other hand, considers rest as well as uniform motion in a straight line as unchanged states.

Only acceleration is considered a change of state that requires an external cause or force. Also, Mulla Sadra considers circular motion as the most perfect kind of motion (and, it may be remarked, such a conception of motion can have unfortunate consequences for any civilization that adopts it).

There is no reason why simple mechanical motion should necessarily be considered a continual renewal of existence and no reason why the first law of motion should be logically incompatible with the principle of causality. One wishes that al-Sadr had treated some concepts of traditional Muslim philosophy with the same critical scrutiny with which he treats the dialectics.

It is the view of some historians of science that certain misconceptions about motion inherited by Muslim philosophy and science from Aristotle were responsible for the failure of Muslim scientists to develop the science of mechanics, which was developed by the West only after it discarded the misconceptions of Greek philosophy regarding motion. On the whole, it may bestated that the arguments advanced by the author in favour of contemporaneity of cause and effect are not very convincing.

At the end of the chapter he draws a theological conclusion from the above discussion. The causal chain which relates relational entities cannot be infinite or circular; for in that case all the parts of the chain will be effects. Hence the world proceeds from a being necessary in essence, self-sufficient and not requiring a cause. Every cause except the first cause is a cause-effect, and hence needs a cause.

The first cause, being a pure cause, does not require a cause prior to it, for a thing does not require a cause qua cause but as an effect qua effect. Previous…