Tahafut_al-Tahafut-transl-Engl-van-den-Bergh

non-existence as a secondary fact, i.e. when non-existence is assumed to
take place through the agent by means of a kind of existence, i.e. when
the agent transforms actual existence into potential existence by removing
the actuality-which is a quality possessed by the substrate-then it is true.
And from this point of view the philosophers do not regard it as impossible
that the world should become non-existent in the sense of its changing
into another form, b for non-existence is in this case only a subsequent
occurrence and a secondary fact. But what they regard as impossible is
that a thing should disappear into absolute nothingness, for then the act of
the agent would have attached itself to non-existence, primarily and
essentially.
Throughout this discussion Ghazali has mistaken the accidental for the
essential, and forced on the philosophers conclusions which they
themselves regard as impossible. This is in general the character of the
discussion in this book. A more suitable name, therefore, for this book
would be `The Book of Absolute Incoherence’, or `The Incoherence of
Ghazali’, not `The Incoherence of the Philosophers’, and the best name
for my book `The Distinction between Truth and Incoherent Arguments’.’
THE THIRD DISCUSSION
THE DEMONSTRATION OF THEIR CONFUSION IN SAYING
THAT GOD IS THE AGENT AND THE MAKER OF THE
WORLD AND THAT THE WORLD IS HIS PRODUCT AND
ACT, AND THE DEMONSTRATION THAT THESE
EXPRESSIONS ARE IN THEIR SYSTEM ONLY METAPHORS
WITHOUT ANY REAL SENSE
Ghazali says:
All philosophers, except the materialists, agree that the
world has a maker, and that God is the maker and agent of
the world and the world is His act and His work. And this is
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