In regard to the first point...

In regard to the first point, al-Sadr quotes a passage of Engels wherein motion is conceived as continuous succession of contradiction and the temporary reconciliation of this contradiction. "The simplest mechanical change in place," says Engels, "cannot, in the last analysis, occur except by means of the presence of a certain body in a certain place at a certain moment and in another place at the same moment.

In other words its being and non-being are simultaneously in one place." This shows that the Marxists have not made much progress since Zeno in conceiving motion. Fakhr al-Din al-Razi also raised similar objections against the gradual emergence of a thing. The Marxists however differ from the ancient Greek philosophers in that while the latter negated motion because it involves contradiction, the former use this conception of motion to justify contradiction.

The alleged contradiction in motion is only due to the confusion between potentiality and actuality. At no stage does motion involve a specific rank in actuality and another rank in potentiality. In other words, motion is a gradual actualization of potentiality.

The confusion in the Marxist conception of motion arises due to its considering the entanglement of actuality and potentiality, or their union in all the stages of motion as a union of actual opposites, a continuous contradiction and a strife among the contradictories.

Now that motion is not the result of an inner cause in the form of conflicting contradictories, it is also impossible for motion to be self-sufficient or to be without an external cause that takes a thing continuously from potentiality to actuality. Applying this idea to material nature as a whole, al-Sadr derives a theological conclusion. The very existence of nature is a gradual progression and continuous departure from potentiality to actuality.

Since there can be no self-sufficiency in the form of internal contradiction, the law of causality forces us to recognize a cause transcending the limits of nature. Al-Sadr then takes up the second thesis of dialectical materialism, that dialectical change and development also occur in the realm of thought and truth, which could not portray nature if thought did not grow and develop dialectically like nature.