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

eternal, their composition would be eternal, but would. need a cause
which would give it unity, since no eternal thing can possess unity
accidentally.
In the third case, and this is the case of the non-essential attribute and
its subject, if the subject were eternal and were such as never to be
without this attribute, the compound would be eternal. But if this were so,
and if an eternal compound were admitted, the Ash’arite proof that all
accidents are temporal would not be true, since if there were an eternal
compound there would be eternal accidents, one of which would be the
composition, whereas the principle on which the Ash’arites base their
proof of the temporality!of accidents is the fact that the parts of which a
body, according to them, is composed must exist first separately; if,
therefore, they allowed an eternal compound, it would be possible that
there should be a composition not preceded by a separation, and a
movement, not preceded by a rest, and if this were permissible, it would
be possible that a body possessing eternal accidents should exist, and it
would no longer be true for them that what cannot exist without the
temporal is temporal. And further, it has already been said that every
compound is only one because of a oneness existing in it, and this
oneness exists only in it through something which is one through itself.
And if this is so, then the one, in so far as it is one, precedes every
compound, and the act of this one agent-if this agent is eternal-through
which it gives all single existents which exist through it their oneness, is
everlasting and without a beginning, not intermittent; for the agent whose
act is attached to its object at the time of its actualization is temporal and
its object is necessarily temporal, but the attachment of the First Agent to
its object is everlasting and its power is everlastingly mixed with its object.
And it is in this way that one must understand the relation of the First,
God, praise be to Him, to all existents. But since it is not possible to prove
these things here, let us turn away from them, since our sole aim was to
show that this book of Ghazali does not contain any proofs, but mostly
sophisms and at best dialectical arguments. But proofs are very rare, and
they stand in relation to other arguments as unalloyed gold to the other
minerals and the pure pearl to the other jewels. ‘ And now let us revert to
our subject.
Ghazali says:
270