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

effect of the existent known, not its cause, and it has been definitely
proved that it is the cause of the existent. The plurality which the
philosophers deny does not consist in its knowing through its own
essence, but in its knowing through a knowledge which is additional to its
essence; the denial, however, of this plurality in God does not imply the
denial of a plurality of things known, except through dialectics, and
Ghazali’s transference of the problem of the plurality which is in the
knowledge, according to the philosophers, to the problem of plurality
which is in the things known themselves, is an act of sophistry, because it
supposes that the philosophers deny the plurality which is in the
knowledge through the things known, in the way they deny the plurality
which arises through the duality of substratum and inherent.
But the truth in this question is that there is not a plurality of things
known in the Eternal Knowledge like their numerical plurality in human
knowledge. For the numerical plurality of things known in human
knowledge arises from two sources: first the representations, and this
resembles spatial plurality;’ secondly the plurality of what is known in our
intellect, namely the plurality which occurs in the first genus-which we may
call being-through its division into all the species which are subsumed
under it, for our intellect is one; with respect to the universal genus which
comprises all species existing in the world, whereas it becomes manifold
through the plurality of the species. And it is clear that when we withhold
the idea of the universal from the Eternal Knowledge, this plurality is in
fact abandoned and there only remains in the Divine a plurality the
perception of which is denied to our intellect, for otherwise our knowledge
would be identical with this eternal knowledge, and this is impossible. And
therefore what the philosophers say is true, that for the human
understanding there is a limit, where it comes to a stand, and beyond
which it cannot trespass, and this is our inability to understand the nature
of this knowledge. And again, our intellect is knowledge of the existents in
potency, not knowledge in act, and knowledge in potency is less perfect
than knowledge in act; and the more our knowledge is universal, the more
it comes under the heading of potential knowledge and the more its
knowledge becomes imperfect . But it is not true of the Eternal Knowledge
that it is imperfect in any way, and in it there is no knowledge in potency,
for knowledge in potency is knowledge in matter. Therefore the
philosophers believe that the First Knowledge requires that there should
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