The Question of the Temporal Origination/Eternity of the World in the History of Philosophy

Temporal origination or eternity of the world, in the sense of having or not having a temporal beginning, has been debated among Muslim and non-Muslim thinkers since antiquity. This article has a review of this issue in the history of philosophy, and concludes that its origins go back to ancient Greece. Some of Greek philosophers’ arguments, especially that of Proclus, had a great impact on the popularity of the theory of temporal eternity of the world. Although the followers of peripatetic philosophy along with those of the Ishraq school have often preferred the theory of eternity of the world, there emerged a new vision in Hikmat Muta‘āliyah, which gave priority to the theory of temporal origination of the world.