 In addition to offering a means of understanding the eternity of the universe, the notion of a potential infinite was also useful for many natural philosophers in that it provided a way to explain the continuous. Although strictly speaking Arabic-speaking philosophers followed the definition of the continuous given by Aristotle in Physics V 3, which is in terms of two touching limits becoming one and the same, they nonetheless further glossed this definition in terms of being divisible into ever smaller portions without limit, that is, as being potentially divisible infinitely. Clearly the notion of the continuous ran afoul of the atomists’ arguments against continua, which we have seen above. In response to such arguments, the philosophers insisted that a continuous magnitude is properly speaking one and unified and as such it is not composed of an infinite number of parts and so does not have an actually infinite number of divisions (e.g., Avicenna 1983, III.2, 8–10). They further maintained that properly speaking one cannot even say that a continuous magnitude has an infinite number of potential divisions, at least not in the sense that an infinite number of non-actualized divisions exist latently in the continuous magnitude such that they could ever all come to exist so as to be all actualized at once. For the philosophers, there is no real sense that the divisions are in the magnitude, whether actually or potentially; rather, the sense in which a continuous magnitude is potentially divisible ad infinitum is that one can mentally posit accidental divisions within the magnitude without end. These accidental divisions would be like the left side when pointing to the left, and the right side when pointing to the right. There are not real left- and right-divisions within the magnitude apart from the positing. In other words, nothing in the magnitude precludes or hinders one from mentally positing ever-smaller divisions. For example, think of 1/2, and 1/2 again, and so forth; however, those halves are not really or actually in the magnitude until unless one goes through the process of mentally (or even physically) marking them off. Consequently, when the philosophers say that the continuous is potentially divisible infinitely, they mean that it is impossible to complete the process of division such that the resultant is an actually infinite number of parts. Thus, there is an inherent contradiction in the theologians’ objection that if the continuous is potentially divisible infinitely, there must be a power, such as God, that can actualize all the potential divisions; for such an argument absurdly entails that what by definition cannot be completed is completed.