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

an agent endowed with a power which is neither voluntary nor natural,
which, however, the Divine Law calls ‘will’, in the same way as
demonstrative proof leads to middle terms between things which seemed
at first sight to be contrary, without being really so, as when we speak of
an existence which is neither inside nor outside the world.
Ghazali answers, on behalf of the philosophers:
I say:
The philosophers say: This is clearly impossible, for
everything that happens is necessitated and has its cause,
and as it is impossible that there should be an effect without
a necessitating principle and a cause, so it is impossible that
there should exist a cause of which the effect is delayed,
when all the conditions of its necessitating, its causes and
elements are completely fulfilled. On the contrary, the
existence of the effect, when the cause is realized with all its
conditions, is necessary, and its delay is just as impossible
as an effect without cause. Before the existence of the world
there existed a Wilier, a will, and its relation to the thing
willed. No new wilier arose, nor a new will, nor a new relation
to the will-for all this is change; how then could a new object
of will arise, and what prevented its arising before? The
condition of the new production did not distinguish itself from
the condition of the non-production in any way, in any mode,
in any relation-on the contrary, everything remained as it
was before. At one moment the object of will did not exist,
everything remained as it was before, and then the object of
will existed. Is not this a perfectly absurd theory?
This is perfectly clear, except for one who denies one of the premisses
we have laid down previously. But Ghazali passes from this proof to an
example based upon convention,’ and through this he confuses this
defence of the philosophers.
Ghazali says:
This kind of impossibility is found not only in the
necessary and essential cause and effect but also in the
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