 According to Avicenna the only way to conceive creation rationally is to conceive it as an ontological derivation outside of time. Hence the Aristotelian model of eternity must be elaborated: the world can be both eternal and created. It can, in fact, be continuously (dāʾiman) brought into existence, without any interruption or temporal precedence (it is possible and made eternally necessary per aliud by its cause). In this manner Avicenna not only develops Proclus’ idea of an eternal effect, but also integrates the theological concern for an absolute creation: indeed, he intends to ascribe to the divine action the same absoluteness that the idea of creation out of nothing is thought to imply. Using a terminology already applied by al-Kindī and distinctly reminiscent of Neo-Platonic texts (Janssens 1997), Avicenna states that the philosophers understand “creation” (ibdāʿ) as an act of bringing into existence that does not suppose a world preceded by non-existence (which would mean that creation was placed in time), but nonetheless absolutely excludes that same possibility of non-existence (Marmura 1984; Janssens 1987; Lizzini 2011):