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

whether eternal rest would not be more appropriate for them in their desire
to assimilate themselves to God’s eternal stability.
In the last chapter of this part Ghazali examines the philosophers’
symbolical interpretation of the Qur’anic entities ‘The Pen’ and ‘The Tablet’
and their theories about dreams and prophecy. It is interesting to note
that, although he refutes them here, he largely adopts them in his own
Vivification of Theology. [?]
In the last part of his book Ghazali treats the natural sciences. He
enumerates them and declares that there is no objection to them
according to religion except on four points. The first is that there exists a
logical nexus between cause and effect; the second, the selfsubsistent
spirituality of the soul; the third, the immortality of this subsistent soul; the
fourth, the denial of bodily resurrection. The first, that there exists between
cause and effect a logical necessity, has to be contested according to
Ghazali, because by denying it the possibility of miracles can be
maintained. The philosophers do not deny absolutely the possibility of
miracles. Muhammad himself did not claim to perform any miracles and
Hugo Grotius tried to prove the superiority of Christianity over Islam by
saying ‘Mahumetis se missum ait non cum miraculis sed cum armis’. In
later times, however, Muhammad’s followers ascribed to him the most
fantastic miracles, for instance the cleavage of the moon and his
ascension to Heaven. These extravagant miracles are not accepted by the
philosophers. Their theory of the possibility of miracles is based on the
Stoic-Neoplatonic theory of ‘Sympathia’, which is that all parts of the world
are in intimate contact and related. In a little treatise of Plutarch it is shown
how bodily phenomena are influenced by suggestion, by emotion and
emotional states, and it is claimed by him, and later also by Plotinus, that
the emotions one experiences cannot only influence one’s own body but
also other bodies, and that one’s soul can exercise an influence on other
bodies without the intermediary of any bodily action. The phenomena of
telepathy, for instance the fascination which a snake has on other animals,
they explained in this way. Amulets and talismans can receive through
psychological influences certain powers which can be realized later. This
explanation of occult phenomena, which is found in Avicenna’s
Psychology, a book translated in the Middle Ages, has been widely
accepted (for instance, by Ghazali himself in his Vivification of Theology),
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