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

on sublunary existence, so that, if these movements differed, the
sublunary world would become disorganized. But many of these causes
are either still completely unknown or become known after a long time and
a long experience, z as it is said that Aristotle asserted in his book On
Astrological Theorems. 3
As to the general questions, it is easier to discover them, and the
astrologers have indeed come to know many of them and in our own time
many of these things have been apprehended which ancient nations, like
the Chaldaeans and others, had already discovered.
And for this reason one cannot doubt that there is a wisdom in the
existents, since it has become clear through induction that everything
which appears in heaven is there through provident wisdom and through a
final cause. And if there are final causes in animals, it is still more
appropriate that there should be final causes in the heavenly bodies. ‘ For
in the case of man and animal about ten thousand signs of providence,
have become known in a period of a thousand years, and it seems not
impossible that in the infinite course of years much of the purpose of the
heavenly bodies will come to light. ‘ And we find that about these things
the ancients give some mysterious indications which the initiated, that is
the most highly reputed of the philosophers, know how to interpret.
As to the two reasons in Ghazali’s argument, the first, that assimilation to
God would determine heaven to be at rest, since God is too exalted for
movement, but that God has chosen movement because through it His
grace can be diffused over transitory things-this is a faulty argument, since
God is neither at rest nor moving, ‘ and the motion of body is nobler for it
than rest, and when an existent assimilates itself to God it assimilates
itself to Him by being in the noblest of its states, which is movement. As to
Ghazali’s second point, it has been answered previously.
THE SIXTEENTH DISCUSSION
TO REFUTE THEIR THEORY THAT THE SOULS OF THE
HEAVENS OBSERVE ALL THE PARTICULAR EVENTS OF
THIS WORLD, AND THAT THE MEANING OF ‘THE
INDELIBLE TABLET ‘IS THE SOULS OF THE HEAVENS, AND
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