This note extends from The Emergence of the World which supports the Argument for the Contingency of the World.
This proof can be summarized with this example: a body that changes from rest to motion, transitions from being attributed with rest, to being attributed with motion. When rest ceases to exist, motion then emerges into existence.
With this in mind, one can argue that bodies began to exist because they are attributed with those emergent accidents:
- Premise 1: Bodies cannot exist without accidents.
- Premise 2: Whatever cannot exist without accidents is emergent (has a beginning).
- Conclusion: Therefore, all bodies are emergent.
This proof is called the proof for the emergence of bodies (burhan huduth al-ajsam).
The two premises can be proven as follows, as proving them necessarily proves the truth of the conclusion.
Premise 1: it is impossible for a body to exist without accidents, because bodies cannot exist without being either at rest or in motion. And each of rest and motion is an accident. This is because it is rationally possible for a moving body to stop moving, and for a resting body to stop resting. Thus, at any given moment, a body is necessarily attributed with some accident.
Premise 2: whatever cannot exist without accidents is emergent, because the set of all accidents is emergent. And since the being in question cannot exist without accidents, it could not have existed before the set of all accidents emerged into existence. Thus, said being cannot exist beginninglessly. And what is not beginningless, is emergent.