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

draw this conclusion. For if the principle of the existents is an essence,
endowed with life, knowledge, power, and will, and if these qualities are
additional to its essence and this essence is incorporeal, then the only
difference between the soul and this existent is that the soul is in a body
and this existent is a soul which is not in a body. But that which has such a
quality is necessarily composed of an essence and attributes, and each
compound requires of necessity a cause for its being a compound, since a
thing can neither be compounded by itself nor produced by itself, for
producing, which is an act of the producer, is nothing but the putting
together of the product. And, in general, just as for each effect there must
be an agent, so for each compound there must be an agent which puts it
together, for the putting together is a condition of the existence of the
compounds And nothing can be a cause of the condition of its own
existence, because this would imply that a thing should be its own cause.
Therefore the Mu’tazilites assumed that these attributes in the First
Principle refer to its essence and are nothing additional to it, in the way in
which this happens with many essential qualities in many existents, like a
thing’s being existent and one and eternal and so on This comes nearer
to the truth than the theory of the Ash’arites, and the philosophers’ theory
of the First Principle approaches that of the Mu’tazilites.
We have now mentioned the motives which led these two parties to their
theories about the First Principle, and the conclusions which their
adversaries can draw from them and hold against them. As concerns the
objections against the philosophers, Ghazali has related them in full; we
have answered some of them already, and we will answer some of them
later. The difficulties which beset the theologians we have shown in this
discussion in detail.
We shall now return to distinguish the degree of conviction and
plausibility reached by the different statements which Ghazali makes in
this book, as we proposed to do, and we were only compelled to mention
the plausible propositions which led the philosophers to their theories
about the principles of the universe because they answer the objections
which their adversaries, the theologians, adduce against them; on the
other hand, we mentioned the difficulties which beset the theologians
because it is only right that their arguments on this problem should be
known and their views represented, since they are free to use them as
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