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

THAT THE INSCRIPTION OF THE PARTICULAR EVENTS OF
THE WORLD ON THE TABLET RESEMBLES THE
DELINEATION OF THE FACTS REMEMBERED ON THE
FACULTY OF MEMORY CONTAINED IN THE BRAIN OF
MAN, AND THAT THIS IS NOT A BROAD HARD BODY’ ON
WHICH THINGS ARE WRITTEN AS THINGS ARE WRITTEN
ON A SLATE BY CHILDREN; SINCE THE QUANTITY OF
THIS WRITING DEMANDS A LARGE SURFACE OF
MATERIAL ON WHICH IT IS WRITTEN, AND IF THIS
WRITING IS INFINITE, THE MATERIAL ON WHICH IT IS
WRITTEN MUST BE INFINITE TOO, AND ONE CANNOT
IMAGINE AN INFINITE BODY, NOR INFINITE LINES ON A
BODY, NOR CAN AN UNLIMITED NUMBER OF THINGS BE
DETERMINED BY A FINITE NUMBER OF LINES
Ghazali says:
And they assert that the heavenly angels are the souls of
the heavens, and that the cherubim which are in the
proximity of God are the separate intellects, which are
substances subsisting by themselves which do not fill space
and do not employ bodies, and that from them the individual
forms emanate in the heavenly souls, and that those
separate intellects are superior to the heavenly angels,
because the former bestow and the latter acquire, and
bestowing is superior to acquiring, and therefore the highest
is symbolized by the pen’ and it is said that God knows
through the pen, because He is like the engraver who
bestows as does the pen and the recipient is compared to
the tablet. And this is their doctrine. And the discussion of
this question differs from the preceding one in so far as that
what we mentioned previously is not impossible, because its
conclusion was that heaven is an animal moving for a
purpose, and this is possible; but this doctrine amounts to
the assertion that the created can know the infinite
particulars, which is often regarded as impossible, and in
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