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

and to exclude the metaphorical sense of ‘sight’. And the intelligent in fact
think that for the man who understands immediately that the real meaning
is intended, this connecting of sight with the eye is almost senseless. But
when one speaks of ‘natural’ and ‘voluntary act’, no intelligent person
disagrees that we have here a division of ‘act’. If, however, the expression
‘voluntary act’ were similar to ‘sight with the eye’ the expression ‘natural
act’ would be metaphorical. But as a matter of fact the natural agent has
an act much more stable than the voluntary agent, for the natural agent’s
act is constant-which is not the case with the act of the voluntary agent.
And therefore the opponents of the theologians might reverse the
argument against them and say that ‘natural act’ is like ‘sight with the eye’
and ‘voluntary act’ is a metaphor-especially according to the doctrine of
the Ash’arites, who do not acknowledge a free will in man and a power to
exercise an influence on reality. And if this is the case with the agent in the
empirical world, how can we know that it is an accurate description of the
real Agent in the divine world to say that He acts through knowledge and
will?
Ghazali says, speaking on behalf of the philosophers:
The philosophers may reply: The designation ‘agent’ is
known only through language. However, it is clear to the
mind that the cause of a thing can be divided into voluntary
and non-voluntary cause, and it may be disputed whether or
not in both cases the word ‘act’ is used in a proper sense,
but it is not possible to deny this since the Arabs say that fire
burns, a sword cuts, that snow makes cold, that scammony
purges, that bread stills hunger and water thirst, and our
expression ‘he beats’ means he performs the act of beating,
and ‘it burns’ it performs the act of burning, and ‘he cuts’ he
performs the act of cutting; if you say, therefore, that its use
is quite metaphorical, you are judging without any evidence.
I say:
I This, in short, is a common-sense argument. The Arabs indeed call that
which exerts an influence on a thing, even if not voluntary, an agent, in a
proper, not in a metaphorical, sense. This argument, however, is
dialectical and of no importance.
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