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

also have to ask about these bodies whether they were composed of the
four elements, in which case they would be transitory, or whether they
might be simple; and, if they were simple, what their nature was. All this is
impossible, especially for one who has ascertained the natures of the
simple bodies and learned their number and the species of bodies
composed of them, and there is no sense in occupying ourselves with this
matter here, for it has been proved in another place that this movement
does not take place by constraint, since it is the principle of all
movements, and through its intermediary, not only movements, but lifer is
distributed to all beings.
As to the second hypothesis, that God moves the heavens without
having created a potency in them through which they move, this also is a
very reprehensible doctrine, far from man’s understanding. It would mean
that God touches and moves everything which is in this sublunary world,
and that the causes and effects which are perceived are all without
meaning, and that man might be man through another quality than the
quality God has created in him and that the same would be true for all
other things. But such a denial would amount to a denial of the
intelligibles, for the intellect perceives things only through their causes.
This theory resembles the theory of those ancient philosophers, the
Stoics, ? who say that God exists in everything; and we shall engage in a
discussion with them’ when we treat the question of the denial of causes
and effects.
The third objection which assumes a natural movement is to suppose
that the movement of heaven is caused by a natural potency in it and
through an essential attribute, not through a soul. It says that the
argument of the philosophers in denying this is false, in so far as they
build their proof on the following argument. The philosophers, that is, say
that if the movement of heaven occurred by nature, the place sought by its
natural movement would be identical with the place which it abandoned,
because every part of heaven moves to places from which it has moved,
since its movement is circular. The place, however, from which natural
local movement retires is different from the place it aims at, for the place
from which it moves is an accidental place, while the place to which it
moves is its natural place, in which it will come to rest. But, says Ghazali,
this is a false assumption of the philosophers, for although they assume
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