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

known, and since He thinks through His own essence, not
through something additional to His own essence, He is
intellect, and it is not impossible that the knower and the
thing known should be one, for the knower, when he knows
that he knows, knows it because he is a knower, so that
knower and known are in a way the same; although our
intellect is in this respect different from the intellect of the
First Principle, for the intellect of the First Principle is
eternally in act, whereas our intellect is sometimes in
potency, sometimes in act. And when He is said to be a
creator, an agent and an originator and to have the other
attributes of action, it means that His existence is eminent,
from which the existence of the universe emanates in a
necessary emanation, and that the existence of everything
derives from Him and is consequent on His existence in the
way that light is consequent on the sun and heat consequent
on fire. But the relation of the world to God resembles the
relation of light to the sun only in this, that both are effects,
and not in any other way, for-the sun is not aware of the
emanation of light from it, nor fire of the emanation of heat
from it; for this is mere nature. But the First is conscious of
Himself and is aware that His essence is the principle of
everything else, and the emanation of everything which
emanates from Him is known to Him, and He is not
inattentive to anything that proceeds from Him. Nor can He
be compared to one of us who puts himself between a sick
man and the sun, for then it is the case that because of him,
but not through his choice (although he does it consciously
and not unwillingly either), the sick man is protected against
the sun’s heat, and it is his body which causes the shadow,
but it is his soul, not his body, which knows that the shadow
is falling and is pleased about it. But this does not apply to
the First: in Him the agent is at the same time the knower
and the one that is pleased; that is, He is not unwilling, and
He is conscious that His perfection consists in the emanation
proceeding from Him. Yes, even if it were possible to
assume that the man’s body causing the shadow were
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