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

self-contradictory disjunction, for we have already shown
that the expression ‘necessary existence’ is obscure, unless
we mean by it the denial of a cause, and so let us rather use
the term which is really meant by it and say: To admit two
existents without a cause, and without the one’s being a
cause of the other, is not impossible. And your statement
that what has no cause has none, either because of its own
essence or through some cause, is a faulty disjunction, for
one does not ask for the cause of a thing which is said to
have no cause and to need no cause for its existence. And
what sense is there in the statement that what has no cause
has no cause either because of its own essence or through a
cause? For to say ‘no cause’ is an absolute negation, and an
absolute non-entity has no cause, and cannot be said to
exist either by its own essence or not by its own essence.
But if you mean by ‘necessary existence’ a positive
qualification of the necessary existent, besides its being an
existent without a cause for its existence, it is quite obscure
what this meaning is. But the genuine meaning of this word
is the negation of a cause for its existence, and this is an
absolute negation about which it cannot be said that it is due
to its essence or to a cause, such that the intended proof
might be based on the supposition of this disjunction. To
regard this as a proof is senseless and has no foundation
whatever. On the contrary, we say that the meaning of its
necessity is that it has no cause for its existence and no
cause for its coming into existence, without there being any
cause whatever for this; its being without a cause is, again,
not caused by its essence; no, the fact that there is no cause
for its existence and no cause for its being, has itself no
cause whatsoever. This disjunction cannot be applied even
to positive qualities, not to speak of that which is really
equivalent to a negation. For suppose one were to say:
‘Black is a colour because of its essence or through a cause,
and if it is a colour because of its essence, then red cannot
be a colour, and then the species of colouredness can exist
only because of the essence of black; if, however, black is a
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