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

Ghazali opposes this statement with two arguments. The first is that this
can only happen in so far as ‘necessary existent’ means a special nature;
according to the theologians, however, this is not the case, for they
understand by ‘necessary existent’ only something negative, namely
something which has no cause, and since negative things are not caused,
how can, for the denial of the causeless, an argument like the following be
used: ‘That which distinguishes one causeless entity from another
causeless entity is either a condition of its being causeless or not; if it is a
condition, there cannot be any plurality or differentiation; and if it is not a
condition, it cannot occasion a plurality in the causeless, which therefore
will be one. ‘ However, the erroneous part in Ghazali’s reasoning is that he
regards the causeless as a mere negation, and, as a negation has no
cause, he asks how it could possess a condition which is the cause of its
existence. But this is a fallacy, for particular negations, which are like
infinite terms and which are used for distinguishing between existents, ,
have causes and conditions which determine this negation in them, just as
they have causes and conditions which determine their positive qualities;
and in this sense there is no difference between positive and negative
attributes, and the necessity of the necessary existent is a necessary
attribute of the causeless and there is no difference between saying ‘the
necessary existent’ or ‘the causeless’.
And the nonsense comes from those who talk like Ghazali, not from his
opponents.
And the summary of Ghazali’s second objection is that to say, as the
philosophers do, that the specific difference through which the necessary
existent is distinguished is either a condition or not, that in the former case
the one necessary existent cannot be distinguished from the other in so
far as they are necessarily existent and that therefore the necessary
existent is one, and that in the latter case the necessary existent has no
specific difference through which it can be divided: that to speak like this is
like saying that if there exist more colours than one of the genus colour,
the difference through which one colour is distinguished from another is
either a condition for the existence of colour or not; that in the former case
the one cannot be distinguished from the other in so far as they are colour,
and colour is therefore one single nature; that in the latter case, if neither
of them is a condition for the existence of colouredness, one colour has no
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