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

from the heart, itself inspired by the spiritual agent, the cause of causes.
The resemblances between Ghazali and Averroës, men belonging to the
same culture, indeed, the greatest men in this culture, seem sometimes
greater than their differences.
Emotionally the difference goes deep. Averroës is a philosopher and a
proud believer in the possibility of reason to achieve a knowledge of ‘was
das Innere der Welt zusammenhält’. He was not always too sure, he knew
too much, and there is much wavering and hesitation in his ideas. Still, his
faith in reason remains unshaken. Although he does not subscribe to the
lofty words of his master that man because of the power of his intellect is a
mortal God, he reproaches the theologians for having made God an
immortal man. God, for him, is a dehumanized principle. But if God has to
respond to the needs of man’s heart, can He be exempt from humanity?
Ghazali is a mu’min, that is a believer, he is a Muslim, that is he accepts
his heart submits to a truth his reason cannot establish, for his heart has
reasons his reason does not know. His theology is the philosophy of the
heart in which there is expressed man’s fear and loneliness and his feeling
of dependence on an understanding and loving Being to whom he can cry
out from the depths of his despair, and whose mercy is infinite. It is not so
much after abstract truth that Ghazali strives; his search is for God, for the
Pity behind the clouds.
SIMON VAN DEN BERGH
IN THE NAME OF THE MERCIFUL AND COMPASSIONATE
GOD: AND AFTER PRAISE TO GOD AND BENEDICTION UPON ALL
HIS MESSENGERS AND PROPHETS:
The aim of this book is to show the different degrees of assent and
conviction attained by the assertions in The Incoherence of the
Philosophers, and to prove that the greater part has not reached the
degree of evidence and of truth.
THE FIRST DISCUSSION
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