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

And Ghazali says:
I say:
If it is answered that the absolute necessary existent is
that which has no efficient cause and no receptive cause, for
if a receptive cause for it were conceded, it would be
conceded that it was an effect.
Ghazali means that, if the philosophers say that the proof has led to a
necessary existent which has no efficient cause, it has, according to them,
no receptive cause either, and that according to the philosophers the
assumption of essence and attributes implies the assumption of a
receptive cause.
Then Ghazali, answering this, says:.
I say:
We say: To call the receptive essence a receptive cause
is one of your technical terms, and there is no proof for the
real existence of a necessary existent corresponding to your
terminology; all that is proved is that there must be a final
term to the series of causes and effects.
Ghazali means that the Ash’arites do not concede that this essence in
which the attributes inhere is a receptive cause, ‘ so as to be forced to
admit an efficient cause for it. He says that the proof of the philosophers
does not lead to an existent which has no receptive cause, let alone
proving the existence of what has no essence and no attributes. It only
proves that it has no efficient cause. This objection is a necessary
consequence of their own proof. Even if the Ash’arites had accepted the
philosophical theory that what has no efficient cause has no receptive
cause, their own statement would not have been overthrown, for the
essence which they assume only receives attributes which do not belong
to the First, since they assume that the attributes are additional to the
essence of the First, and they do not admit essential attributes in the way
the Christians do.
And as to Ghazali’s words:
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