Divine Will and Temporal Origination

The theologians assert that the world عالم is temporally originated حادث زمانی or created in time زمان, such that there was a time when the world was non-existent معدوم because God had not willed it to be, and then the world came into being وجود from a prior non-being when God willed its existence; but the Philosophers find this view to be problematic because according to the account presented by the theologians, the prior non-existence of the world, given the existence of the Divine Essence ذات حق was due to the absence, within the Essence, of the will to create it; then the subsequent existence of the world is due to the arising of the will to create it, within the Divine Essence; this explanation renders the Divine Will ارادہ الاہی to create the world, originated حادث like the world itself; such that the initial absence of the will to create the world, in the Divine Essence, is succeeded by its subsequent presence within the Essence; this renders God mutable or changeable متغیر; but everything that changes or undergoes motion حرکت, is something moved متحرک and therefore dependent upon a mover محرک; and that which is dependent upon another in any aspect of its existence is essentially contingent ممکن بالذات, and hence in need of a cause for its existence; but that which is in need of a cause for its existence cannot simultaneously be Necessary in Itself واجب بالذات. Moreover, this account of a world created in time being caused by an originated will renders God a composite مرکب of His Essence and the Will to create; now every composite is dependent upon its parts اجزاء and therefore necessary through another واجب بالغیر; but that which is necessary through another cannot simultaneously be Necessary in Itself.

 As stated earlier, positing the existence of the Divine Essence without the will to create the world existing within the Essence, followed by the will to create arising or originating within the Essence, renders God changeable; but that which changes must first possess the possibility to change; but this acceptance of the possibility to change renders God a composite of possibility from the aspect of change and necessity from the other aspects, and consequently contingent in essence.

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