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

not have matter in the way the generable bodies need this, but they are
either, as Themistius affirms, forms,z or possess matter in an equivocal
sense of the word. And I say that either the matters of the heavenly bodies
are identical with their souls, or these matters are essentially alive, not
alive through a life bestowed on them.
Ghazali says:
I say:
To this there are two answers. The first is that it can be
said: Since it follows from the tenets of your school that the
bodies of the world are eternal, it must follow too that they
have no cause, and your statement that on a second
examination such a conclusion must be rejected will itself be
rejected when we discuss God's unity and afterwards the
denial of attributes to God.
Ghazali means that since they cannot prove the unity of the First
Principle, and since they cannot prove either that the One cannot be bodyfor
since they cannot deny the attributes, the First Principle must,
according to them, be an essence endowed with attributes, and such an
essence must be a body or a potency in a body4-it follows that the First
Principle which has no cause is the celestial bodies. And this conclusion is
valid against those who might argue in the way he says the philosophers
argue. The philosophers, however, do not argue thus, and do not say that
they are unable to prove the unity and incorporeality of the First Principle.
But this question will be discussed later.
Ghazali says:
The second answer, and it is the answer proper to this
question, is to say: it is established as a possibility that these
existents can have a cause, but perhaps for this cause there
is another cause, and so on ad infinitum. And you have no
right to assert that to admit an infinite series of causes is
impossible, for we ask you, `Do you know this by immediate
necessary intuition or through a middle term?' Any claim to
intuition is excluded, and any method of deductive proof is
forbidden to you, since you admit celestial revolutions
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