A comprehensive, rigorous analysis of all the significant medieval Islamic and Jewish proofs for the eternity of the world, the creation of the world, and the existence of God

In this classic study, Herbert A. Davidson examines every medieval Arabic and Hebrew proof for the eternity of the world, the creation of the world and the existence of God which has philosophical character, disregarding only those that rest entirely on religious faith or fall below a minimum threshold of plausibility. Classifying the proofs systematically, he analyses and explains them, and traces their sources in Greek philosophy. He pursues the penetration of some of these Islamic and Jewish arguments into medieval Christian philosophy and, in a few instances, all the way into seventeenth- and eighteenth-century European philosophy.

Unique in both its classification of the proofs and its comprehensiveness, this work will once again serve medievalists, historians of philosophy and historians of ideas.