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

thinks only its own essence, and that the next principle can think only the
First, but cannot think what is under itself, because this is its effect and if it
should think its effect, the effect would become a cause. The philosophers
believe that the consciousness which the First has of its own essence is
the cause of all existents, and that which each of the intellects inferior to it
thinks is in part the cause of those existents the creation of which pertains
especially to it, in part the cause of its own essence, i.e. the human
intellect in its universality.
It is in this way that the doctrine of the philosophers concerning these
things and concerning the motives which lead them to these beliefs about
the world must be understood. On examination they will not be less
convincing than the motives of the theologians of our religion, first the
Mu’tazilites and secondly the Ash’arites, which lead them to their view of
the First Principle. They believed, namely, that there exists an essenceneither
corporeal, nor in a body-which is living, knowing, willing, provided
with power, speaking, hearing, and seeing, while the Ash’arites, but not
the Mu’tazilites, held besides that this essence is the agent of everything
without intermediary and knows them with an infinite knowledge, since the
existents themselves are infinite. The Ash’arites denied the existence of
causes, and professed that this living, knowing, willing, hearing, seeing,
powerful, speaking essence exists in continuous existence connected with
everything and in everything. But this assumption may be thought to imply
consequences open to criticism, for an essence with qualities as
mentioned above must necessarily be of the genus of the soul, for the soul
is an essence, incorporeal, living, knowing, provided with power, willing,
hearing, seeing, speaking, and therefore these theologians assumed the
principle of reality to be a universal soul, separated from matter in a way
they did not understand.’
We shall now mention the difficulties which result from this assumption.
The most obvious one concerning their theory of the qualities is that there
must exist a composite, eternal essence and therefore an eternal
compound, which contradicts the Ash’arite theory that every compound is
temporal, because it is an accident and every accident is according to
them a temporal product. They assumed besides that all existents are
possible acts, and they did not believe that there is in them an order, a
proportion, and a wisdom which the nature of these existents requires; no,
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