Alhassanain(p) Network for Heritage and Islamic Thought

THE FOURTEENTH DISCUSSION

T’o refute their proof that heaven is an animal moving in a circle in obedience to God

Ghazali says:

The philosophers say also that heaven is an animal and possesses a soul which has the same relation to the body of heaven as our souls to our bodies, and just as our bodies move by will to their ends through the moving power of the soul, heaven acts. And the aim of the heavens in their essential movement is to serve the Lord of the world in a way we shall relate.

Their doctrine in this question is something that cannot be refuted, and we shall not declare that it is impossible; for God has the power of creating life in any body, and neither the size of a body nor its circular shape is a hindrance to its being animated, for the condition of the existence of life is not limited to a particular shape, since animals, notwithstanding their different shapes, all participate in the reception of life. But we claim their incapacity to reach this knowledge by rational proof, even if it is true, and only the prophets through divine revelation or inspiration could apprehend such a knowledge, but rational argument does not prove it; indeed, we do not even assert that it is impossible that such a thing should be known by proof, if there is a proof and this proof is valid, but we must say that what they have given as a proof has only the value of a conjecture, but lacks all strictness.

Their device is that they say that heaven is moved, and this is a premiss given by perception. And every body moved has a mover, which is a premiss established by reason, since if body were moved merely by being body, every body would be in motion. ‘ Every mover receives its impulse either from the moved itself, like the nature in the stone which falls and the will in the movement of the animal conjoined with its power to move, or from an external mover which moves through constraint, as when a stone is flung upwards. Everything that is moved by something existing in itself is either unconscious of its movement (and we call this nature), like the falling of the stone, or conscious (and we call this voluntary or animated). This disjunction, that a movement is either constrained or natural or voluntary, comprises all the cases completely, so that if a movement does not fall under two of these divisions it must be of the third type. Now the movement of heaven cannot be constrained, because the mover of a movement by constraint is either (i) another body which is moved by constraint or by will, and in this case we must finally no doubt arrive at a will as mover, and when in the heavenly bodies a body moved through will is established, then our aim is reached, for what use is it to assume movements through constraint when finally we must admit a will? or (2) God is the mover of its movement by constraint without intermediary, and this is impossible; for if it moves through Him in so far as it is a body and in so far as He is its creator, then necessarily every body ought to be moved. ;

This movement, therefore, must be distinguished by a quality which marks this body off from all other bodies; and this quality will be its proximate mover, either by will or by nature. And it cannot be said that God moves it through His will, because His will has the same relation to all bodies, and why should this body be specially disposed so that God should move it rather than another? One cannot suppose this; for it is impossible, as has been shown in the question about the temporal beginning of the world. When it is therefore established that this body needs as a principle of movement a special qualification, the first division, that of the movement through constraint, is ruled out.

So there remains the possibility that this movement occurs by nature. But this is not possible, for nature by itself is not the cause of motion, because the meaning of ‘motion’ is the withdrawal from one place to another place; and a body does not move from the place in which it is when that place is its proper place. For this reason a bladder full of air on the surface of the water does not move, but when it is immersed it moves towards the surface of the water, and then it has found its proper place and has come to rest and its nature is stabilized; when, however, it is transferred to a place which is not its proper one, it withdraws to its proper place, just as it withdraws from mid-water to the border of the air. Now it cannot be imagined that the circular movement is natural, since it returns to every position and place which it would be supposed to abandon, and it is not by nature that a body seeks the place which it abandons, and therefore the bladder of air does not seek the interior of the water, nor the stone when it has come to rest on the earth the air. Thus only the third division remains, that of movement by will.‘

I say:

What he lays down in this section, that every thing moved either is moved by itself or through a body from outside and that it is this which is called constraint, is self-evident. But that for every thing which is moved by itself there is no mover but the movedz is not a self-evident proposition; it is only a common notion, and the philosophers indeed try to prove that every thing moved by itself has an interior mover different from it, through the use of other premisses which are self-evident, and of premisses which are the conclusions of other proofs, and this is something which may be ascertained in their books. And likewise it is not self-evident that every thing moved by an exterior mover must finally terminate in a thing moved by itself: what is posed here as a set of self-evident premisses is, as a matter of fact, a mixture of the two kinds of assertions; that is to say they are partly conclusions and partly self-evident. Indeed, that what is moved by itself and not by an external body is moved either by its substance and nature or by an interior principle, and that it cannot be moved by something which cannot be seen or touched and which is connected with it from the outside (or in other words by an incorporeal entity) is self-evident. You can claim to have a proof for this, namely by saying that if this were not so, upward movement would not be proper to fire rather than to earth; but it is, indeed, evident in itselfAnd as to that which does not move by its own substance and nature, this is evident in the things which are sometimes in motion and sometimes at rest, since that which is by nature cannot perform both of two opposites;’ for those things, however, which are perceived to move continually, a proof is necessary.

Again, as to his assertion that what is moved by itself is moved through a principle in itself, either a principle called ‘nature’ or a principle called ‘soul’ and ‘choice’, this is true, when previously it has been proved that nothing exists which is moved by itself. As concerns his affirmation that the principle called nature does not move by itself in space, except when it is not its proper place (for then it moves to its proper place and stays there), this is true. And his further remark that what moves in a circle has neither an improper nor a proper place, so that it could move from the one to the other either totally or partially, this is nearly self-evident and easy to uphold, and he has in this section mentioned something of its explanation and proof; and therefore, when we understand ‘nature’ in the sense he has established here, circular movement cannot move by nature.

And as to his further remark that, when it does not move by nature, it moves through soul or through a potency which resembles the soul, it appears that the term ‘soul’ is predicated only equivocally of the soul in the celestial bodies, ‘ and the learned for the most part apply the term ‘nature’ to every potency which performs a rational act, namely an act which conforms to the order and arrangement which exist in rational things; but they exclude heaven from this kind of potency, because according to them it is heaven which provides this directing power for all existents?

However, the argument of the ancients he relates here has only dialectical value, partly because much in it which is in reality a conclusion of a proof is assumed to be self-evident and partly because things are opposed in it which are not really in opposition. It is also dialectical because its premisses are probable and common notions. This was Avicenna’s method of proving that the heavenly body was an animated body, but for this the ancients have a more efficient and clearer proof.

Ghazali says:

The objection is that we can assume besides your theory three hypotheses which cannot be proved to be untrue. The first is that we assume the movement of heaven to take place through constraint by another body which desires its movement and makes it turn eternally, and that this body which sets it in motion is neither a sphere nor a circumference nor a heaven; their assertion is therefore false that the movement of heaven is voluntary and that heaven is animated, and what we have said is possible, and it cannot be denied except by a presumption of impossibility.

I say:

This is false, for the philosophers have proved that outside heaven there is no other body, and it cannot be inside heaven; besides, were this body to set it in motion, it would necessarily have to be moved itself, and we should have an infinite regress.

Ghazali says:

The second hypothesis is to say: ‘The movement occurs by constraint and its principle is the will of God, and indeed we say that the downward movement of a body also occurs by constraint, through God’s creating this movement in this body; and the same can be said of all the other movements of those bodies which are not living. ‘

There still remains the fact that the philosophers regard this as impossible, because they ask why the will should have distinguished just this body, whereas all other bodies participate in bodiliness. But we have already explained that it is of the nature of the eternal Will to differentiate one thing from a similar one, and that the philosophers are forced to admit such a quality for the determination of the direction of the circular movement and for the determination of the place of the poles and their points, and we shall not repeat this; but our argument is, in short, that when they deny that a body can be differentiated for the attachment of the will to it without a distinctive attribute, this can be turned against them in regard to this distinctive attribute, for we ask them: ‘Why is the body of heaven distinguished by this attribute, which sets it apart from all other bodies, although all other bodies are also bodies; and how can anything occur to it which does not occur to other bodies? ‘ If this is caused by another attribute, we must repeat the same question about this other attribute, and in this way we should get an infinite series, and they would be forced in the end to acknowledge an arbitrary judgement of the will and the fact that in the principles there is something that distinguishes one thing from a similar one.

I say:

That a stone moves downwards through a quality which has been created in it, and fire upwards, and that these qualities are opposed -this is a self-evident fact, and to contradict it is pure folly. But it is still more foolish to say that the eternal Will causes the movement in these things everlastingly-without any act He deliberately choseIand that this movement is not implanted in the nature of the thing, and that this is called constraint; for if this were true, things would have no nature, no real essence, no definition at all. For it is selfevident that the natures and definitions of things only differ through the difference of their acts, just as it is self-evident that every movement forced on a body comes from a body outside it. And this argument has no sense whatever.

And as to his affirmation ‘that to assume that the act which proceeds from an existent requires a special attribute makes it necessary to ask about this attribute also why it characterizes this existent rather than any other of its kind’, this is like saying that one ought to ask a man who asserted that earth and fire, which participate in bodiliness, were distinguished only by an attribute added to their bodiliness, why the attribute of fire characterizes fire and the attribute of earth, earth, and not rather the reverse. These, indeed, are the words of a man who does not assume for the attributes themselves a particular subject, but on the contrary believes that any attribute can be in any subject. ‘ He who speaks like this denies also the definition and the differentiation of subjects, and their characterization through special attributes, which is the first cause of the specification of existents through particular attributes, and this assumption belongs to the principles of the Ash’arites who tried thereby to annul both religious and rational wisdom and, in short, reason itself.

Ghazali says:

The third hypothesis is to admit that heaven is differentiated by an attribute and that this attribute is the principle of the movement, in the way they believe this of the downward movement, although in this case it is not known, as it is known in the case of the stone.

And their assertion that a thing cannot by its nature abandon the place sought by its nature rests on a confusion. For according to them there is here no numerical difference; on the contrary, the body is one and the circular movement is one, and neither the body nor the movement has an actual part; they are only divided by imagination, and this movement is not there to seek its place or to abandon it-indeed, it may well be that God creates a body in the essence of which there is something which determines a circular movement. The movement itself will then be determined by this attribute, not, however, the aiming at the place, for that would imply that arrival at the place would be the aim of the movement. And if your assertion that every movement takes place in seeking a place or abandoning it is a necessary principle, it is as if. you made the seeking of the place the goal of nature, not the movement itself which will in this case only be a means. ‘ But we say it is not absurd that the movement, not the seeking of a place, should be the goal itself; and why should that be impossible? And it is clear that, simply because they regard their hypothesis as the most plausible, we are not obliged to deny any other hypothesis absolutely; for to assert absolutely that heaven is a living being is pure presumption, for which there is no support.

I say:

The assertion of the philosophers that this movement is not a natural potency resembling the natural movement in earth and fire is true. And this is clear from their saying that this potency desires the place suitable to the body which possesses existence through this potency, and that the heavenly body, since all space is suitable to it, is not moved through such a potency, and the learned do not call this potency heavy or light. b Whether this potency depends on perception or not, and if so which kind of perception, is shown by other arguments.

And the summary of this is to say: The inanity of the first hypothesis, namely that the mover of heaven might be another body which is not heaven, is self-evident or nearly so. For this body cannot set the heavenly body in a circular movement without being moved by itself, as if one were to say that a man or an angel turned the heavens from east to west. , And if this were true, this animated body would have to be either outside the world or inside it; and it is impossible that it should be outside the world, since outside the world there is neither place nor emptiness, as has been shown in many passages, and it would also be necessary that when this body set it in motion it should rest upon a body supporting it, and this latter body again upon another, and so ad infinitum. But that it should be inside the world is also impossible, for then it ought to be perceived by the senses, since any body inside the world can be perceived, and this body, besides needing a body which would make it turn, would also need a body to carry it or perhaps the body conveying it and the body setting it in motion might be identical, and the conveying body would need a body to convey it, and the number of animated bodies which set things in motion would have to be equal to the number of heavenly bodies. And one would also have to ask about these bodies whether they were composed of the four elements, in which case they would be transitory, or whether they might be simple; and, if they were simple, what their nature was. All this is impossible, especially for one who has ascertained the natures of the simple bodies and learned their number and the species of bodies composed of them, and there is no sense in occupying ourselves with this matter here, for it has been proved in another place that this movement does not take place by constraint, since it is the principle of all movements, and through its intermediary, not only movements, but lifer is distributed to all beings.

As to the second hypothesis, that God moves the heavens without having created a potency in them through which they move, this also is a very reprehensible doctrine, far from man’s understanding. It would mean that God touches and moves everything which is in this sublunary world, and that the causes and effects which are perceived are all without meaning, and that man might be man through another quality than the quality God has created in him and that the same would be true for all other things. But such a denial would amount to a denial of the intelligibles, for the intellect perceives things only through their causes. This theory resembles the theory of those ancient philosophers, the Stoics, ? who say that God exists in everything; and we shall engage in a discussion with them’ when we treat the question of the denial of causes and effects.

The third objection which assumes a natural movement is to suppose that the movement of heaven is caused by a natural potency in it and through an essential attribute, not through a soul. It says that the argument of the philosophers in denying this is false, in so far as they build their proof on the following argument. The philosophers, that is, say that if the movement of heaven occurred by nature, the place sought by its natural movement would be identical with the place which it abandoned, because every part of heaven moves to places from which it has moved, since its movement is circular. The place, however, from which natural local movement retires is different from the place it aims at, for the place from which it moves is an accidental place, while the place to which it moves is its natural place, in which it will come to rest. But, says Ghazali, this is a false assumption of the philosophers, for although they assume that the parts of heaven have many movements through many movers, this cannot be correct according to their own principles, for they affirm that the circular movement is unique, and that the body moved by it is unique, and therefore heaven is not in search of a place through its circular movement, and it is thus possible that in heaven there should be something through which it aims at the movement itself.

But the justification of the philosophers is that they only say this to such people as believe that the stars change their place through a natural movement, similar to the change of place found in things moved by nature. And the true assumption of the philosophers is that through the circular movement the thing moved is not in search of a place, but only seeks the circular movement itself, and that things which behave in this way have of necessity as their mover a soul and not nature. Movement, that is to say, has existence only in the intellect, since outside the soul there exists only the thing moved and in it there is only a particular movement without any lasting existence. ; But what is moved towards movement in so far as it is movement must of necessity desire this movement, and what desires movement must of necessity represent it.

And this is one of the arguments through which it is evident that the heavenly bodies are provided with intellect and desire; and this is clear also from various other arguments, one of which is that we find that circular bodies move with two contrary movements at the same time, towards the east and towards the west; and this cannot happen through nature, for that which moves through nature moves in one movement alone. ‘

And we have already spoken of what caused the philosophers to believe that heaven possesses intellect, and their plainest proof is that, having understood that the mover of heaven is free from matter, they concluded that it can only move through being an object of thought and representation, and therefore the thing moved must be capable of thought and representation. And this is clear also from the fact that the movement of the heavens is a condition of the existence and preservation of the existents in the sublunary world, which cannot take place by accident. But these things can only be explained here in an informative and persuasive fashion.

THE FIFTEENTH DISCUSSION

To refute the theory of the philosophers about the aim WHICH MOVES HEAVEN

Ghazali says:

The philosophers have also affirmed that heaven is an animal which obeys God by movement and by drawing near Him; for every voluntary movement arises for the sake of an end, since one cannot imagine that an act and a movement can proceed from an animal which does not prefer the act to its omission-indeed, if the act and its omission were to be equipollent, no act could be imagined.

Further, approach to God does not mean seeking His grace and guarding oneself from His wrath, since God is too exalted for wrath and grace; similar words can only be applied to Him metaphorically, and they are used in a metaphorical way when one speaks of His will to punish or to reward. ‘ Approach cannot mean the seeking of an approach to Him in space, for this is impossible; the only meaning it can have is of an approach in qualities, for God’s existence is the most perfect and every other existence is imperfect in relation to His, and in this imperfection there are degrees and distinctions. The angels are nearest to Him in quality, not in place; and this is the meaning of the term ‘the angels in His proximity’ -namely, the intellectual substances which neither change nor alter nor pass away, and which know things as they really are. And the nearer man comes to the angels in qualities the nearer he comes to God, and the end of man’s nature lies in assimilation to the angels.

And when it is established that this is the meaning of ‘approach to God’, and that it refers to seeking approach to Him in qualities, then this consists for man in knowledge of the realities of the existents and in his remaining eternally in the most perfect condition possible to him; for indeed permanence in the utmost perfection is God.

As to the angels in His proximity, any perfection that is possible for them is actual with them in their existence, since there is no potency in them which could emerge into act, ‘ and therefore they are in the utmost perfection in regard to everything but God. And by ‘heavenly angels’ is meant the souls which move the heavens, and in them there is potency, and their perfections are divided into what is actual, like their circular shape and their appearance, which exists always, and what is potential, namely their appearance in a definite position and place; for any definite position is possible to them, but they are not actually in all positions, for to be in all of them at once is impossible. And since they cannot be at all times in all particular positions at once, they try to exhaust all these particular positions by being in them specifically, so that they do not cease to aim at one position and one place after another; and this potentiality is never ending, nor do these movements ever end.

But their one aim is to assimilate themselves to the First Principle, in the acquisition of the utmost perfection within the bounds of possibility with respect to Him, and this is the meaning of the obedience of the heavenly angels to God. And their assimilation is acquired in two ways. First, in completing every position specifically possible, and this is aimed at by first intention; secondly, by the order proceeding from their movement through the diversity of their configuration in trine and quartile, in conjunction and opposition, and through the diversity in the ascendant in relation to the earth, so that the good which is in the sublunary world can emanate from it, and all that happens arise from it. And every soul is intellective and longs for the perfection of its essence.

I say:

Everything he says here about the philosophers is a philosophical doctrine, or its consequence, or can be regarded as a philosophical doctrine, with one exception, when he says that heaven seeks by its movement the particular positions which are infinite; however, what is infinite cannot be sought, since it cannot be attained. Nobody has held this doctrine but Avicenna, and Ghazali’s objection to it, which we will mention later, is sufficient, and according to the philosophers it is the movement itself in so far as it is movement which is aimed at by heavens For the perfection of an animal, in so far as it is an animal, is movement; in this sublunary world rest occurs to the transitory animal only by accident, that is through the necessity of matter, for lassitude and fatigue touch the animal only because it is in matter. b The whole life and perfection of those animals which are not affected by tiredness and languor must of necessity lie in their movement; and their assimilation to their Creator consists in this, that by their movement they impart life to what exists in this sublunary world.

This movement, however, does not occur according to the philosophers in first intention for the sake of this sublunary world; that is, the heavenly body is not in first intention created for the sake of this sublunary world. For indeed this movement is the special act for the sake of which heaven is created, and if this movement occurred in first intention for the sake of the sublunary world, the body of the heavens would be created only for the sake of this sublunary world, and it is impossible, according to the philosophers, that the superior should be created for the sake of the inferior; on the contrary, out of the superior there follows the existence of the inferior, just as the perfection of the ruler in relation to his subject does not lie in his being a ruler, but his being a ruler is only the consequence of his perfection. In the same way the providence which prevails in this world is like the care of the ruler for his subjects, who have no salvation and no existence except in him, and especially in the ruler who for his most perfect and noble existence does not need to be a ruler, let alone that he should need his subjects’ existence. ‘

Ghazali says:

The objection to this is that in the premisses of this argument there are controversial points. We shall not, however, pay any attention to them, but shall revert at once to the final intention the philosophers had in view and refute it from two standpoints.

The first is to say: ‘To seek perfection through being in all possible places may be foolishness rather than obedience; is it not in some degree like a man, who has no occupation and who has adequate means to satisfy his wishes and needs, and who gets up and walks round in a country or in a house, and declares that by doing so he approaches God and that he perfects himself by arriving at all possible places, and says that it is possible for him to be in these places, but not possible for him to unite all the places numerically, and that therefore he fulfils this task specifically and that in this there is perfection and an approach to God? Indeed, it is his foolishness which makes him do such a stupid thing, and it may be said that to change positions and pass from place to place is not a perfection which has any value or which may be an object of desire.

And there is no difference between what they say and this.

I say:

It might be thought that the silliness of such an argument either comes from a very ignorant or from a very wicked man. Ghazali, however, has neither of these dispositions. But sometimes unwise words come by way of exception from a man who is not ignorant, and wicked talkfrom a man who is not wicked, and it shows the imperfection of people that such conceits can be addressed to them.

But if we concede to Avicenna that the sphere aims through its movement at a change of positions, that this change of positions is what conserves the beings of this sublunary world after giving them their existence, and that this action is everlasting, can there then exist an obedience more complete than this? For instance, if a man exerted himself in guarding a city against the enemy, going round the city day and night, should we not regard this as a most important act of approach to God? But if we assumed that he moved round the town for the end which Ghazali attributes to Avicenna, namely that he only sought to perfect himself through trying to be in an infinite number of places, he would be declared mad. ‘ And this is the meaning of the Divine Words: ‘Verily thou canst not cleave the earth, and thou shalt not reach the mountains in height. ‘2

And his assertion that, since heaven cannot complete the individual numerical positions or join them, it has to complete them specifically, is a faulty, incomprehensible expression, unless he means that its movement has to last in its totality since it cannot be lasting in its parts. For there are movements which are lasting neither in their parts nor in their totality, namely the movements of the transitory; and there are movements which are lasting in their totality, transitory in their parts, but notwithstanding this such a movement is said to be one in ways which are distinguished in many passages of the books of the philosophers. And his assertion that, since heaven cannot complete them numerically, it completes them specifically, is erroneous, since the movement of heaven is numerically one, and one can only apply such an expression to the transitory movements in the sublunary world; for these movements, since they cannot be numerically one, are specifically one and lasting through the movement which is numerically one.

Ghazali says:

The second is to say: What you assert of the aim can be realized through the movement from west to east. Why, then, is the first movement from east to west, and why are not all the movements of the universe in the same direction? And if there is an intention in their diversity, why are they not different in an opposite way, so that the movement from the east should become the movement from the west, and the reverse? Everything you have mentioned of the occurrence of events like trine and sextile and others through the diversity of movements would happen just the same through the reverse. Also, what you have mentioned of the completion of the positions and places would happen just the same if the movement were in the opposite direction. Why then, since the reverse movement is possible for them, do they not move sometimes in one direction, sometimes in another, to complete all their possibilities, if it is in the completion of all their possibilities that their perfection lies? It is therefore shown that all these things are phantasms without any substance; for the secrets of the heavenly kingdom cannot be attained through such phantasms. God alone can manifest them to His prophets and saints through revelation, not through proof, and therefore the later philosophers are unable to give the reason for the direction of the movement of the heavenly bodies and why they have chosen it.

I say:

This objection is sophistical, for the transference from one question to another is an act of sophistry. Why does there follow, from their inability to assign the reason of the diversity in the directions of the movements of heaven, their inability to give the reason for the movement of heaven or to say that there is no reason at all for this movement? But this whole argument is extremely weak and feeble. However, how happy the theologians are about this problem! They believe that they have refuted the philosophers over it, since they are ignorant of the different arguments by which the philosophers have arrived at their reasons and of the many reasons that are required and must be assigned to every existent, since the causes differ through the variety in the natures of the existents. For simple existents have no other cause for what proceeds from them than their own natures and their forms, , but in composite things there are found, beside their forms, efficient causes which produce their composition and the conjunction of their parts. The earth, for instance, has no other cause for its downward movement than its attribute of earthiness, and fire has no other cause for its upward movement than its own nature and its form, and through this nature it is said to be the opposite of earth. Likewise, for up and down there are no reasons why the one direction should be higher and the other lower, but this is determined by their nature. And since the differentiation of directions is determined through the directions themselves, and the differentiation of the movements through the differentiation of the directions, no other reason can be assigned for the variation in the movements than the variation in the directions of the things moved, and the variation in their natures depends on the variation of their natures; i. e. some are nobler than others.

For instance, when a man sees that animals in walking place one leg in front of their body before the other and not the reverse, and asks why the animal does this, there is no sufficient answer except to say that an animal in its movement must have one leg to put forward and one to support itself on, and therefore an animal must have two sides, right and left, and the right is the one which is always put forward first because of its special potency and the left the one which always, or mostly, follows, because of its special potency; and it cannot be the reverse, so that the left side became the right, since the natures of the animal determine this, either through a determination in a majority of cases, or through a constant determination.

The same is the case with the heavenly bodies since, if a person asks why heaven moves in a particular direction, the answer is that it is because it has a right and a left, and especially because it is evident from its nature that it is a living being, only it has the peculiarity that the right side in a part of it is the left side in another part, z and that although it has only this one organ of locomotion it moves in opposite directions like a left foot which can also do the work of a right And just as the answer to the question whether the animal would not be more perfect if its right were its left, and why the right has been differentiated to be the right, and the left to be the left, is that the only reason for this is that the nature of the side called right has been determined by its essence to be the right and not the left, and that the left side has been determined by its essence to be the left and not the right, and the noblest has been attributed to the noblest; in the same way, when it is asked why the right side has been differentiated for the movement of the highest sphere to be the right and the left side to be the left (for the reverse was also possible as the case of the planets shows), the only answer is that the noblest direction has been attributed to the noblest body, as upward movement has been attributed to fire, downward movement to earth. As to the fact that the other heavens move in two contrary movements’ besides the diurnal, this happens because of the necessity of this opposition of movements for the sublunary world, namely the movement of generation and corruption, b and it is not of the nature of the human intellect that it should apprehend more in such discussions and in this place than what we have mentioned.

Having made this objection against the philosophers and asserted that they have no answer to it, he mentions an answer which some of the philosophers give.

Ghazali says:

Some philosophers say that since the perfection occurs through movement, from whatever side it may be, and the order of events on earth requires a diversity of movements and a determination of directions, the motive concerning them of the principle of movement lies in the approach to God’ and the motive of the direction of movement in the diffusion of good over the sublunary world. But we answer: ‘This is false for two reasons. The first is: if one may imagine such a thing, let us declare that the nature of heaven demands rest, and must avoid movement and change, for this is in truth assimilation to God; for God is too exalted to change, and movement is a change, although God chose movement for the diffusion of His grace. For through it He is useful to others and it does not weigh on Him nor tire Him-so what is the objection to such a supposition?

‘The second is that events are based on the diversity of the relations which result from the diversity in the directions of the movements. Now let the first movement be a movement from the west, and let the others move from the east, then the same diversity will arise as is needed for the diversity of the relations. Why then has one direction been specially chosen, since these varieties require only the principle of variety and in this sense one direction by itself is not superior to its contrary? ‘

I say:

This theologian wants to indicate the cause of this from the point of view of the final cause, not of the efficient, and none of the philosophers doubts that there is here a final cause in second intention, which is necessary for the existence of everything in the sublunary world. And although this cause has not yet been ascertained in detail, nobody doubts that every movement, every progression or regression of the stars, has an influence on sublunary existence, so that, if these movements differed, the sublunary world would become disorganized. But many of these causes are either still completely unknown or become known after a long time and a long experience, z as it is said that Aristotle asserted in his book On Astrological Theorems. 3

As to the general questions, it is easier to discover them, and the astrologers have indeed come to know many of them and in our own time many of these things have been apprehended which ancient nations, like the Chaldaeans and others, had already discovered.

And for this reason one cannot doubt that there is a wisdom in the existents, since it has become clear through induction that everything which appears in heaven is there through provident wisdom and through a final cause. And if there are final causes in animals, it is still more appropriate that there should be final causes in the heavenly bodies. ‘ For in the case of man and animal about ten thousand signs of providence, have become known in a period of a thousand years, and it seems not impossible that in the infinite course of years much of the purpose of the heavenly bodies will come to light. ‘ And we find that about these things the ancients give some mysterious indications which the initiated, that is the most highly reputed of the philosophers, know how to interpret.

As to the two reasons in Ghazali’s argument, the first, that assimilation to God would determine heaven to be at rest, since God is too exalted for movement, but that God has chosen movement because through it His grace can be diffused over transitory things-this is a faulty argument, since God is neither at rest nor moving, ‘ and the motion of body is nobler for it than rest, and when an existent assimilates itself to God it assimilates itself to Him by being in the noblest of its states, which is movement. As to Ghazali’s second point, it has been answered previously.