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

THE FIFTEENTH DISCUSSION
TO REFUTE THE THEORY OF THE PHILOSOPHERS ABOUT
THE AIM WHICH MOVES HEAVEN
Ghazali says:
The philosophers have also affirmed that heaven is an
animal which obeys God by movement and by drawing near
Him; for every voluntary movement arises for the sake of an
end, since one cannot imagine that an act and a movement
can proceed from an animal which does not prefer the act to
its omission-indeed, if the act and its omission were to be
equipollent, no act could be imagined.
Further, approach to God does not mean seeking His
grace and guarding oneself from His wrath, since God is too
exalted for wrath and grace; similar words can only be
applied to Him metaphorically, and they are used in a
metaphorical way when one speaks of His will to punish or to
reward. ‘ Approach cannot mean the seeking of an approach
to Him in space, for this is impossible; the only meaning it
can have is of an approach in qualities, for God’s existence
is the most perfect and every other existence is imperfect in
relation to His, and in this imperfection there are degrees
and distinctions. The angels are nearest to Him in quality,
not in place; and this is the meaning of the term ‘the angels
in His proximity’ -namely, the intellectual substances which
neither change nor alter nor pass away, and which know
things as they really are. And the nearer man comes to the
angels in qualities the nearer he comes to God, and the end
of man’s nature lies in assimilation to the angels.
And when it is established that this is the meaning of
‘approach to God’, and that it refers to seeking approach to
Him in qualities, then this consists for man in knowledge of
383