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

existence of the celestial bodies only attains its perfection through their
being in motion, the giver of this motion is in fact the agent of the celestial
bodies. Further, they prove that God is the giver of the unity through which
the world is united, and the giver of the unity which is the condition of the
existence of the composite; that is to say, He provides the existence of the
parts through which the composition occurs, because this action of
combining is their cause (as is proved), and such is the relation of the First
Principle to the whole world. And the statement that the act has come to
be, is true, for it is movement, and the expression ‘eternity’ applied to it
means only that it has neither a first nor a last term. Thus the philosophers
do not mean by the expression ‘eternal’ that the world is eternal through
eternal constituents,s for the world consists of movement. And since the
Ash’arites did not understand this, it was difficult for them to attribute
eternity at the same time to God and to the world. Therefore the term’
eternal becoming’ is more appropriate to the world than the term ‘eternity’.
Ghazali says:
I say:
The third reason why it is impossible for the philosophers
to admit according to their principle that the world is the act
of God is because of a condition which is common to the
agent and the act, namely, their assertion that out of the one
only one can proceed. Now the First Principle is one in every
way, and the world is composed out of different constituents.
Therefore according to their principle it cannot be imagined
that the world is the act of God.
If one accepts this principle, and its consequences, then indeed the
answer is difficult. But this principle has only been put forward by the later
philosophers of Islam.’
Then Ghazali says, on behalf of the philosophers:
The philosophers may say perhaps: The world in its
totality does not proceed from God without a mediator; what
proceeds from Him is one single existent, and this is the first
of the created principles, namely, abstract intellect, that is a
substance subsisting by itself, not possessing any volume,
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