Alhassanain(p) Network for Heritage and Islamic Thought

THE TWELFTH DISCUSSION

About the impotence of the philosophers to prove that God knows Himself

Ghazali says:

We say that when the Muslims understood that the world was created through the will of God, they proved His knowledge from His will, then His life from His will and His knowledge together, ‘ then from His life, according to the principle that every living being knows itself, they proved that He too must know His own essence, since He is alive. And this is a rational procedure of extreme force. For you philosophers, however, since you deny the divine will and the world’s coming into existence, and since you affirm that what proceeds from Him proceeds in a necessary and natural sequence, why should it be impossible that His essence should be of such a nature that only the first effect proceeded from it, and that then the second effect followed the first till the whole order of existents was completed, but, notwithstanding this, the First would not know itself, just as neither fire from which heat proceeds, nor the sun from which light proceeds, know themselves or anything else? For only that which knows itself knows what proceeds from itself, and therefore knows other things besides itself. And we have already shown that, according to the theory of the philosophers the First does not know other things, and we have forced those who do not agree with them on this point to acknowledge this consequence which follows from their assumption. And if it does not know others, it is not absurd to suppose that it does not know its own self.

If they say: ‘Everyone who does not know himself is dead, and how could the First be dead? ‘-we answer: ‘This is indeed a conclusion which follows from your theory, since there is no difference between you and those who say that every one who does not act through will, power and choice, who neither hears nor sees, is dead, and he who does not know other things is dead. And if it is possible that the First is destitute of all these attributes, what need has it of knowing itself? ‘ And if they return to the doctrine that everything which is free from matter is intellect by itself and therefore thinks itself, we have shown that this is an arbitrary judgement without any proof.

And if they say: ‘The proof is that what is existent is divided into what is alive and what is dead, and what is alive is prior and superior to what is dead, and the First is prior and superior: therefore let it be alive; and every living being knows itself, since it is impossible that the living should be amongst its effects and should not itself be alive’, we answer: ‘All this is pure presumption, for we affirm that it is not impossible that that which knows itself should follow from that which does not, either through many intermediaries or without mediation. And if the reason for its impossibility is that in that case the effect would be superior to the cause, well, it is not impossible that the effect should be superior to the cause, for the superiority of the cause to the effect is not a fundamental principle. Further, how can you refute the view that its superiority might consist not in its knowledge but in the fact that the existence of the universe is a consequence of its essence? For the proof is that, whereas the First neither sees nor hears, there are many other beings who know other things than themselves and who do see and hear. ‘

And if it were said, ‘Existents are divided into the seeing and the blind, the knowing and the ignorant’, we answer: ‘Well, let the seeing then be superior and let the First see and have knowledge of things!” But the philosophers deny this, and say that its excellence does not consist in seeing and knowing things, but in not being in need of sight and knowledge and being the essence from which there proceeds the universe in which the knowing and the seeing beings exist. And in the same way it may be said that this essence does not possess excellence because it has knowledge itself, but because it is the principle of essences which possess knowledge, and this is an excellence which is peculiar to it.

The philosophers are therefore forced to deny also that the First knows itself, for nothing proves such a knowledge but will, and nothing proves will except the temporal beginning of the world, and if this principle is destroyed, all these things are destroyed which are accepted through the speculation of the mind alone. For, they do not possess a proof for any thing they affirm or deny concerning the attributes of the First, but they make only such guesses and conjectures as lawyers would despise in their suppositions. However, no wonder that the intellect should be perplexed about the divine attributes; one should wonder only at the wonderful self-complacency of the philosophers, at their satisfaction with their proofs and their belief that they know those things through evident proofs, notwithstanding the mistakes and the errors in them.

I say:

The most wonderful thing is the claim of the theologians that the temporal becoming of the world implies that it has been willed by a will, for we find that temporal things occur through nature, through will, and by chance. x Those that occur through will are the products of art, and those that occur through nature are natural things, and if temporal things occurred only through will, will would have to be included in the definition of the temporal, whereas it is well known that the definition of temporal becoming is ‘existence succeeding non-existence’. If indeed the world had come into being temporally, it would be more appropriate that it should have come into being, in so far as it was a natural existent, from principles appropriate to natural things, rather than from principles appropriate to artificial things, i. e. the will. Since, however, it is established that the world exists through a First Agent which preferred its existence to its nonexistence, it is necessary that this agent should be a willer, and if this First Agent does not cease to prefer the world’s existence to its nonexistence, and the willer-as Ghazali says-must have knowledge, the philosophers are in complete agreement with the theologians about this fundamental point. The whole theological argument, however, which he gives has only persuasive power, because it compares natural things to artificial.

As to what he says of the philosophers, that they believe that what proceeds from the Creator proceeds in a natural way, this is a wrong imputation. What they really believe is that existents proceed from Him in a way superior to nature and to the human will, for both these ways are subject to an imperfection, but they are not the only possible ways, since it has been proved that the act of God can proceed from Him neither in a natural way nor in a voluntary, in the sense in which this is understood in the sublunary world. For will in an animal is the principle of movement, and if the Creator is devoid of movement, He is devoid of the principle of movement in the way a voluntary agent in the empirical world moves. ‘ What proceeds from God proceeds in a nobler way than the voluntary, a way which nobody can understand but God Himself. And the proof that He wills is that He knows the opposites, and if He were an agent in absolutely the same way as He is a knower, He would carry out the two contrary acts together, and this is impossible; and therefore it is necessary that He should perform one of the two contraries through choice.

The error of the theologians with regard to this question is that they say that every act is either natural or voluntary, but do not understand the meaning of either of these words. For nature, according to the philosophers, has different meanings, the primary being the ascending of fire and the descending of earth, ‘ and an existent only has this movement when something has prevented it from being in its natural place, and there was therefore something that constrained it; but the Creator is too high for this kind of nature. The philosophers also apply the term ‘nature’ to every potency from which an intellectual act proceeds, in the same way as the acts which proceed from the arts, and some of the philosophers ascribe intellect to this nature, and some say that this nature does not possess intellect but acts only by natures And they say that this nature proceeds from an intellect, because they compare it to artificial things which move themselves and from which orderly well-arranged acts proceed And therefore their master Aristotle asserts that it is manifest that the nature of intellect rules the universe. ? And how far is this belief from what Ghazali ascribes to them!

Who, however, assumes as a universal maxim that he who knows himself must know other things which proceed from him, must conclude that he who does not know other things cannot know himself.

And having refuted Avicenna’s theory that God knows other things, by the arguments of the philosophers on this point which he adduces against him, ‘ he concludes against him that the First does not know itself; and this conclusion is valid. ,

And as to what he relates of the argument of the philosophers on this point, namely that they say that he who does not know himself is dead and the First cannot be dead, this is a persuasive argument composed of common propositions, for he who is not alive is not dead unless it is in his nature to receive life’-or one must mean by ‘dead’ what is meant by ‘inanimate’ and ‘inorganic’, and then this is a true dichotomy, for every existent is either alive or inorganic, provided we understand by ‘life’ a term which is equivocally used of the eternal and the corruptible.

And as to Ghazali’s words:

And if they return to the doctrine that everything which is free from matter is intellect by itself and therefore thinks itself, we have shown that this is an arbitrary judgement without any proof.

I say:

We have already shown the manner in which this proof of the philosophers must be taken, in so far as this proof preserves its power by being given in this book-I mean its power is diminished, as is necessary when a thing is removed from its natural context. And as to what he says of their arguing on this point against the philosophers that the existent is either alive or dead, and that which is alive is more noble than that which is dead, and that the principle is nobler than that which is alive and that it is therefore necessarily alive, if by ‘dead’ is understood the inanimate, these propositions are common and true.

His assertion, however, that life can proceed from the lifeless and knowledge from what does not possess knowledge, and that the dignity of the First consists only in its being the principle of the universe, is false. For if life could proceed from the lifeless, then the existent might proceed from the non-existent, and then anything whatever might proceed from anything whatever, and there would be no congruity between causes and effects, either in the genus predicated analogically or in the species. 4

As to his assertion that, when the philosophers say that what is nobler than life must be alive, it is like saying that that which is nobler than what has hearing and seeing must have hearing and seeing: the philosophers do not say so, for they deny that the First Principle can hear and see. And Ghazali’s argument that, since, according to the philosophers, that which is superior to what hears and sees need not hear and see, then also what is superior to the living and the knowing need not itself be alive and possessed of knowledge and that, just as according to the philosophers that which possesses sight can proceed from what has no sight, so it is possible that knowledge should proceed from what has no knowledge: this is a very sophistical and false argument.

For according to the philosophers that which has no hearing or seeing is not absolutely superior to that which has hearing and seeing, but only because it has a perception superior to seeing and hearing, namely knowledge. ‘ But, since there is nothing superior to knowledge, it is not possible that that which does not possess knowledge should be superior to that which does, be it a principle or not. For since some of the principles possess knowledge, others not, it is not permissible that those which do not know should be superior to those that do, just as little as this is possible in regard to effects which do and do not possess knowledge. And the nobility of being a principle cannot surpass the nobility of knowledge, unless the nobility of a principle that does not possess knowledge could surpass the nobility of a principle that does. And the excellence of being a principle cannot surpass the excellence of knowledge. And therefore it is necessary that the principle which has the utmost nobility should possess the utmost excellence, which is knowledge. The philosophers only avoid ascribing to the First hearing and seeing, because this would imply its possessing a soul. The Holy Law ascribes hearing and seeing to God to remind us that God is not deprived of any kind of knowledge and understanding, and the masses cannot be made to grasp this meaning except by the use of the terms ‘hearing’ and ‘seeing’, and for this reason this exegesis is limited to the learned, and therefore cannot be taken as one of the dogmas of the Holy Law common to the masses. And the same is the case with many questions the solutions of which the Holy Law leaves to science.

Everything this chapter contains is the confusion and the incoherence of Ghazali himself. But, we appeal to God on account of the mistakes the learned have made, and that He may pardon them because of their wish to glorify His name in all such questions, and we pray God that He may not place us among those who are excluded from the next world through their faults in this, or from the highest through their desire for the lowest, and that He may bestow on us final blessedness!

THE THIRTEENTH DISCUSSION

To refute those who affirm that God is ignorant of the individual things which are divided in time into present, past, and future

Ghazali says:

About this theory they all agree; for as to those who believe that God only knows Himself, this is implied in their belief; and as to those who believe that He knows things besides Himself (and this is the theory which Avicenna has chosen) they believe that God knows other things in a universal knowledge which does not fall under the concept of time and which is not differentiated through past, future, and present although, nevertheless, Avicenna affirms that not the weight of a grain escapes God’s knowledge either on earth or in the heavens, since He knows individual things in a universal way. ‘

Now we must first understand this theory, and then occupy ourselves with refuting it. We shall explain this through an example, namely that the sun, for example, suffers an eclipse, after not having been eclipsed, and afterwards recovers its light. There are therefore in an eclipse three moments: the moment when there was not yet an eclipse but the eclipse was expected in the future, the time when the eclipse was actually there, its being, and thirdly, the moment the eclipse had ceased but had been. Now we have in regard to these three conditions a threefold knowledge: we know first that there is not yet an eclipse, but that there will be one, secondly that it is now there, and thirdly, that it has been present but is no longer present. This threefold knowledge is numerically distinguishable and differentiated and its sequence implies a change in the knowing essence, for if this knowing essence thought after the cessation of the eclipse that the eclipse was present as before, this would be ignorance, not knowledge, and if it thought during its presence that it was absent, this again would be ignorance, and the one knowledge cannot take the place of the other.

The philosophers affirm now that the condition of God is not differentiated by means of these three moments, for this would imply a change, and that He whose condition does not change cannot be imagined to know these things, for knowledge follows the object of knowledge, and when the object of knowledge changes, the knowledge changes, and when the knowledge changes, without doubt the knower changes too; but change in God is impossible. However, notwithstandng this, the philosophers affirm that God knows the eclipse and all its attributes and accidents, but through a knowledge which is attributed to Him in an eternal attribution and is unchangeable: God knows for instance that the sun exists and that the moon exists, and that they have emanated from God Himself through the medium of angels whom the philosophers in their technical terminology call ‘separate intellects’, and God knows that the sun and moon move in circles and that between their orbits there is an intersection at two points, the ascending and the descending node, ‘ and that at certain times the sun and moon are together in these nodes and that then the sun is eclipsedi. e. the body of the moon comes between the sun and the eyes of the observer, and the sun is concealed from his eyes, and that when the sun has passed a certain distance beyond this node, say a year, it is eclipsed again, and that this eclipse is either total or for a third or for a half, and that it will last an hour or two hours, and God knows equally all other time determinations and all other accidents of the eclipse; and nothing of this escapes God’s knowledge. However, God’s knowledge before, during, and after the eclipse is all of one kind without any differentiation and without any implication of a change in His essence. And such is His knowledge of all temporal occurrences which take place through causes which have other causes terminating finally in the circular movement of the heavens, and the cause of this movement is the soul of the heavens, and the cause of the soul’s movement is its desire to assimilate itself to God and to the angels near Him z And the whole universe is known to Him, that is, it is manifested to Him in one single congruous manifestation which is not influenced by time. Still, at the time of the eclipse it cannot be said that He knows that the eclipse is taking place now, nor does He know when it has passed that it has passed now, for He cannot be imagined to know anything which for its definition needs a relation to time, since this implies a change. This is their solution in so far as it concerns a division in time.

And as concerns their theory about what is divided in matter and space, like individual men and animals, they say that God does not know the accidents of Zaid, Amr, and Khalid and that He knows only man in general, through a universal knowledge, and that He knows the accidents and properties of man in general, namely that he must have a body composed of limbs, some to grasp with, some to walk with, some to perceive with, some of which form a pair while some are single, and that the bodily faculties must be dispersed in all parts of the body. And the same applies to all the qualities which are inside and outside man’s body and all its accidents, attributes, and consequences, so that there is nothing that is hidden from God in His knowledge of the universal. But the individual Zaid can only be distinguished from Amr through the senses, not through the intellect, and this distinction is based on pointing to a special direction, whereas the intellect can only understand direction and space absolutely as universals. And when we say ‘this’ and ‘that’, this is a case of pointing to a special relation of a sensible thing to the observer as being near to him or far from him, or in a definite place, and this is impossible where God is concerned.

This then is the principle in which they believe, and through it they uproot the Divine Laws absolutely, for this principle implies that God cannot know whether Zaid obeys or disobeys Him, since God cannot know any new occurrences that happen to Zaid, as He does not know the individual Zaid; for the individual and his acts come into existence after nonexistence, and as God does not know the individual, He cannot know his conditions and his acts-indeed, He cannot know that Zaid becomes a heretic or a true believer, for He can know only the unbelief and the belief of man in general, not as it is specified in individuals. Yes, God cannot know Muhammad’s proclaiming himself a prophet at the time he did, nor can God know this of any definite prophet; He can only know that some people proclaim themselves prophets and that they have such-and-such qualities, but any individual prophet He cannot know, for he can only be known by sense-perception. Nor can He know the acts which proceed from the prophets, since they are divided as acts of a definite man through the division of time, and their perception with their diversity implies a change in the observer.

This is what we wanted to do first, namely to expound their view, then to render it intelligible, thirdly to show the perversities implied in it.

We shall now pass on to relate the artfulness of their theory and the point where it fails. Their artfulness lies in the fact that they say: ‘There are here three different moments, and a sequence of different things in one single subject no doubt implies a change in it. For if at the moment of the eclipse God thought that what was happening was like what had been before, He would be ignorant; if, on the other hand, He knew that it was happening and knew previously that it was not happening, but would happen, His knowledge and His condition would have become different, and this would imply a change, for “change” means only a difference in the knowledge and a difference in the knowledge implies a difference in the knower, for he who did not know a thing and then knows it, has changed; previously he had no knowledge that it was happening, and then his knowledge was realized: therefore he changed. ‘

And they have elaborated this by saying that there are three kinds of conditions;, first a condition which is a mere relation, as when we say right and left, for this does not refer to an essential attribute, but is a mere relation; for if you change a thing from your right to your left, your relation to it changes, but the condition of your essence does not change, for the relation changes with respect to the essence, but the essence does not change. The second kind of condition is of the same type, i. e. when you have the capacity to move bodies in front of you, and those bodies or part of them disappear, your innate power and your capacity does not change, for your capacity is first the capacity to move body in general and secondly to move a definite body in so far as it is a body; and the relation of the capacity to the definite body is not an essential attribute, but a mere relation, and the disappearance of the body determines the cessation of the relation, but not a change in the condition of the one who possesses this capacity. The third kind of condition, however, is a change in the essence, for when one who had no knowledge acquires knowledge and one who had no power becomes powerful there is indeed a change. ‘

And the change in the object known causes a change in the knowledge, for the relation to the definite object known enters into the essence of the knowledge itself, since the essence of the definite knowledge is attached to the definite object known as it exists in reality, and when the knowledge attaches itself to it in another relation, it becomes necessarily another knowledge and this succession implies a differentiation in the essence of the knowledge. And it cannot be said that God has one single knowledge which, having been knowledge of the future event, could become knowledge of the present event, and having been knowledge of the present event, could become knowledge of the past event, for although the knowledge would be one and the same and have similar conditions, there would be a change of relation to Him and the change of relation would enter into the essence of the knowledge; and this change would imply a change in the essence of the knowledge, and from this there would result a change (which is impossible) in God.

The objection to this is twofold.

First one can say: How will you refute one who says that God has one single knowledge of the eclipse, for instance, at a definite time, and that this knowledge before the occurrence of the eclipse is the knowledge that the eclipse will occur, and during the eclipse is identical with the knowledge that it is occurring, and after the eclipse identical with the knowledge that it has ceased, and that these differences refer to relations which imply neither a change in the essence of the knowledge nor a change in the essence of the knower, and that this is exactly like a mere relation? For one single person can be at your right and then turn in front of you and go to your left, and there is a succession of relations with respect to you; but that which is changing is the person who takes up different positions, and God’s knowledge must be understood in this way, for indeed we admit that God comprehends things in one single knowledge in everlasting eternity, and that His condition does not change; with their intention, the denial of His change, we do agree, but their assertion that it is necessary to regard the knowledge of an actual becoming and its cessation as a change, we refuse to accept. For how do you know this? Indeed, suppose God had created in us a knowledge that Zaid will arrive tomorrow at daybreak, and had made this knowledge permanent without creating for us another knowledge or the forgetfulness of this knowledge; then, by the mere previous knowledge, we should know at daybreak that at present Zaid is arriving and afterwards that he had arrived, and this one permanent knowledge would suffice to comprehend these three moments.

There still remains their assertion that the relation to a definite object known enters into the essence of the knowledge of this object, and that whenever the relation becomes different the thing which has this essential relation becomes different, and that whenever this differentiation and this sequence arise there is a change. ‘

We say: If this is true, then rather follow the path of your fellow-philosophers when they say that God knows only Himself and that knowing Himself is identical with His essence, for if He knew man and animal and the inorganic in general (and these are undoubtedly different things), His relation to them would undoubtedly be different too; and one single knowledge cannot be a knowledge of different things, since the object related is differentiated, and the relation is differentiated, and the relation to the object known is essential to the knowledge, and this implies a multiplicity and a differentiation-not a mere multiplicity with a similarity, for similar things are things which can be substituted for each other, but the knowledge of an animal cannot be substituted for the knowledge of the inorganic, nor the knowledge of white for the knowledge of black, for they are two different things. ‘ Besides, these species and genera and universal accidents are infinite and they are different, and how can different sciences fall under one science? Again, this knowledge is the essence of the knower without any addition, and I should like to know how an intelligent man can regard the unity of the knowledge of one and the same thing, when this knowledge is divided through its relations with the past, the future, and the present, as impossible, and uphold the unity of the knowledge which is attached to all genera and all different species! For the diversity and the distance between the genera and the remote species is far greater than the difference which occurs in the conditions of one thing which is divided through the division of time; and if the former does not imply a plurality and differentiation, why then does the latter? And as soon as it is proved that the diversity of times is less important than the diversity of genera and species, and that the latter does not imply a plurality and a diversity, the former also will not imply this. And if this does not imply a diversity, then it will be possible that the whole universe should be comprehended in one everlasting knowledge in everlasting time, and that this should not imply a change in the essence of the knower.

I say:

This sophistry is based on the assimilation of Divine Knowledge to human and the comparison of the one knowledge with the other, for man perceives the individual through his senses, and universal existents through his intellect, and the cause of his perception is the thing perceived itself, and there is no doubt that the perception changes through the change in the things perceived and that their plurality implies its plurality.

As to his answer that it is possible that there should exist a knowledge the relation of which to the objects known is that kind of relation which does not enter into the essence of the thing related, like the relation of right and left, to that which has a right and a left his is an answer which cannot be understood from the nature of human knowledge. ‘ And his second objection, that those philosophers who affirm that God knows universals must, by admitting in His knowledge a plurality of species, conclude that a plurality of individuals and a plurality of conditions of one and the same individual is permissible for His knowledge, is a sophistical objection. For the knowledge of individuals is sensation or imagination, and the knowledge of universals is intellect, z and the new occurrence of individuals or conditions of individuals causes two things, a change and a plurality in the perception; whereas knowledge of species and genera does not imply a change, since the knowledge of them is invariable and they are unified in the knowledge which comprehends them, and universality and individuality only agree in their forming a plurality.

And his statement that those philosophers who assume one simple knowledge, which comprehends genera and species without there existing in it a plurality and diversity which the differentiation and diversity of the species and genera would imply, will have also to admit one simple knowledge which will comprehend different individuals and different conditions of one and the same individual, is like saying that if there is an intellect which comprehends species and genera, and this intellect is one, there must be one simple genus which comprehends different individuals; and this is a sophism, since the term ‘knowledge’ is predicated equivocally of divine and human knowledge of the universal and the individual. But his remark that the plurality of species and genera causes a plurality in the knowledge is true, and the most competent philosophers therefore do not call God’s knowledge of existents either universal or individual, for knowledge which implies the concepts of universal and individual is a passive intellect and an effect, whereas the First Intellect is pure act and a cause, and His knowledge cannot be compared to human knowledge; for in so far as God does not think other things as being other than Himself His essence is not passive knowledge, and in so far as He thinks them as being identical with His essence, His essence is active knowledge. ‘

And the summary of their doctrine is that, since they ascertained by proofs that God thinks only Himself, His essence must of necessity be intellect. And as intellect, in so far as it is intellect, can only be attached to what exists, not to what does not exist, and it had been proved that there is no existent but those existents which we think, it was necessary that His intellect should be attached to them, since it was not possible that it should be attached to non-existence and there is no other kind of existent to which it might be attached. ‘ And since it was necessary that it should be attached to the existents, it had to be attached either in the way our knowledge is attached to it, or in a superior way, and since the former is impossible, this knowledge must be attached in a superior way and according to a more perfect existence of existents than the existence of the existents to which our intellect is attached. For true knowledge is conformity with the existent, z and if His knowledge is superior to ours and His knowledge is attached to the existent in a way superior to our attachment to the existent, then there must be two kinds of existence, a superior and an inferior, and the superior existence must be the cause of the inferior.

And this is the meaning of the ancient philosophers, when they say that God is the totality of the existents which He bestows on us in His bounty and of which He is the agent. And therefore the chiefs of the Sufis say: there is no reality besides Him. But all this is the knowledge of those who are steadfast in their knowledge, and this must not be written down and it must not be made an obligation of faith, and therefore it is not taught by the Divine Law. And one who mentions this truth where it should not be mentioned sins, and one who withholds it from those to whom it should be told sins too. And that one single thing can have different degrees of existence can be learned from the different degrees of existence of the sou1.

Ghazali says:

The second refutation is: ‘What prevents you, according to your doctrine, from affirming God’s knowledge of individuals, even if this implies His changing, for why do you not believe that this kind of change is not impossible in God, just as Jahm, one of the Mu’tazilites, says that His knowledge of temporals is temporal’ and the later Karramites say that God is the substratum of the temporal’? The true believers refute these theories only by arguing that what changes cannot be without change, and what cannot be without change and without temporal occurrences is itself temporal and not eternal. ‘ For you, however, according to your doctrine the world is eternal but not without change, and if you acknowledge an eternal which changes, nothing prevents you from accepting this theory. ‘

If you replied: We only regard this as impossible, because the temporal knowledge in His essence must either derive from Himself or from something else; that it should derive from Himself is impossible, for we have shown that from the eternal no temporal can proceed and that God cannot become active after having been at rest, for this would imply a change, and we have established this in treating the question of the temporal becoming of the world; and if it were to arise in His essence from something else, how could something else influence and change Him so that His conditions changed as if under the power and necessity of something different from Him? -we answer: Neither of these alternatives is impossible, according to your doctrine. As to your assertion that it is impossible that from the eternal a temporal being should proceed, we refuted this sufficiently when we treated this problem. According to you it is impossible that from the eternal there should proceed a temporal being which is the first of a series of temporal beings and it is only impossible that there should be a first temporal being. ‘ However, these temporal beings have no infinite number of temporal causes, but by means of the circular movement they terminate in something eternal which is the soul and life of the sphere; and the soul of the sphere is eternal and the circular movement arises temporally from it and each part of this movement begins and ends, and that which follows it is surely a new occurrence. Therefore, according to you the temporal beings arise from the eternal. ‘ However, since the conditions of the eternal are uniform, the emanation of temporal occurrences from Him will be eternally uniform, just as the conditions of the movement are uniform, since they proceed from an eternal being whose conditions are uniform; and all the philosophical sects acknowledge that from an eternal being a temporal being can proceed, when this happens in a proportionate way and eternally. Therefore let the different types of His knowledge proceed from Him in this way.

And as to the other alternative, that His knowledge should proceed from another, we answer: Why is that impossible according to you? There are here only three difficulties. The first is the changing, but we have already shown that this is a consequence of your theory.

The second difficulty, that one thing should be the cause of a change in another, is not impossible according to you; for let the occurrence of the thing be the cause of the occurrence of its being known, just as you say that the appearance of a coloureds figure in front of the pupil of the eye is the cause of the impression of the image of this figure on the vitreous humour of the pupil through the medium of the transparent air between the pupil and the figure seen ;b and if therefore an inanimate object can be the cause of the impression of the form on the pupil-and this is the meaning of sight-why should it be impossible that the occurrence of temporal beings should cause the First to acquire its knowledge of them? And just as the potency of seeing is disposed to perceive, and the appearance of the coloured figure, when the obstacles are removed, is the cause of the actualization of the perception, so let according to you the essence of the First Principle be disposed to receive knowledge and emerge from potency into act through the existence of this temporal being. And if this implies a change in the eternal, a changing eternal is not impossible according to you. And if you protest that this is impossible in the necessary existent, you have no other proof for establishing the necessary existent than the necessity of a termination to the series of causes and effects, as has been shown previously, and we have proved that to end this series with an eternal being which can change is not impossible.

The third difficulty in the problem is that if the Eternal could change through another, this would be like subjection and the control of another over Him.

But one may say: Why is this impossible according to you? For it only means that the Eternal is the cause of the occurrence of the temporal beings through intermediaries, and that afterwards the occurrence of these temporal beings becomes the cause of the knowledge which the Eternal has of them. It is therefore as if Hemere Himself the cause of this knowledge reaching Him, although it reaches Him through intermediaries. And if you say that this is like subjection, let it be so, for this conforms to your doctrine, since you say that what proceeds from God proceeds in the way of necessity and nature, and that He has no power not to do it, and this too resembles a kind of bondage, and indicates that He is as it were under necessity as to that which proceeds from Him. And if it is said that this is no constraint, since His entelechy consists in the fact that He makes everything proceed from Himself, and that this is no subjection, then we answer that His entelechy consists in knowing everything, and if it is true to say that the knowledge which we receive in conjunction with everything that happens is a perfection for us, , not an imperfection or subjection, let the same be the case with respect to God.

I say:

The summary of this first objection against the philosophers, which is a refutation of their theories, not of the fact itself, is that ‘according to your principles, philosophers, there exists an eternal being in which temporal beings inhere, namely the sphere; how can you therefore deny that the First Eternal is a subject in which temporal beings inhere? ‘ The Ash’arites deny this only because of their theory that any subject in which temporal beings inhere is itself a temporal being. And this objection is dialectical, for there are temporal beings which do not inhere in the eternal, namely the temporal beings which change the substance in which they inhere; and there are temporal beings which inhere in the eternal, namely the temporal beings which do not change the substance of their substratum, like the local movement of the moving body and transparency and illumination;’ and further there is an eternal in which no movements and no changes inhere at all, namely the incorporeal eternal; and there is an eternal in which only some movements inhere, namely the eternal which is a body like the heavenly bodies, and when this distinction, which the philosophers require, is made, this objection becomes futile, for the discussion is only concerned with the incorporeal eternal.

Having made this objection against the philosophers, he gives the answer of the philosophers about this question, and the summary is that they are only prevented from admitting temporal knowledge in the First, because temporal knowledge must arise through itself or through another; and in the former case there would proceed from the eternal a temporal being, and according to the principles of the philosophers no temporal being can proceed from the eternal. Then he argues against this assertion that from the eternal no temporal being can proceed, by showing that they assume that the sphere is eternal and that they assume that temporal beings proceed from it.

But their justification of this is that the temporal cannot proceed from an absolutely eternal being, but only from an eternal being which is eternal in its substance, but temporal in its movements, namely the celestial body; and therefore the celestial body is according to them like an intermediary between the absolutely eternal and the absolutely temporal, for it is in one way eternal, in another way temporal, and this intermediary is the celestial circular movement according to the philosophers, and this movement is according to them eternal in its species, temporal in its parts. And so far as it is eternal, it proceeds from an eternal, and in so far as its parts are temporal, there proceed from them infinite temporal beings. And the only reason that prevented the philosophers from accepting an existence of temporal beings in the First was that the First is incorporeal and temporal beings only exist in body, for only in body, according to them, there is receptivity, and that which is free from matter has no receptivity.

And Ghazali’s objection to the second part of the argument of the philosophers, namely that the First Cause cannot be an effect, is that it is possible that God’s knowledge should be like the knowledge of man, that is that the things known should be the cause of His knowledge and their occurrence the cause of the fact that He knows them, just as the objects of sight are the cause of visual perception and the intelligible the cause of intellectual apprehension; so that in this way God’s producing and creating existents would be the cause of His apprehending them, and it would not be His knowledge that would be the cause of His creating them.

But it is impossible, according to the philosophers, that God’s knowledge should be analogous to ours, for our knowledge is the effect of the existents, whereas God’s knowledge is their cause, and it is not true that eternal knowledge is of the same form as temporal. He who believes this makes God an eternal man’ and man a mortal God, and in short, it has previously been shown that God’s knowledge stands in opposition to man’s, for it is His knowledge which produces the existents, and it is not the existents which produce His knowledge.