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

if, however, reason does riot perceive its truth, it becomes known that
human reason cannot attain it, and that only the Holy Law perceives it. ,
Ghazali’s argument against the philosophers about the interpretation of
the Tablet and the Pen does not belong to the problem under discussion,
and there is therefore no sense in introducing it here. And this
interpretation of knowledge of the occult, according to Avicenna, leas no
sense.
The rational objection he adduces against Avicenna over this problem is
well founded. For there are for heaven no particular motions of particular
distances that would require imagination. The animate being which moves
through particular motions in particular spaces imagines, no doubt, these
spaces towards which it moves, and these movements, when it cannot
visually perceive these distances; the circular, however, as Ghazali says,
moves qua circular in one single movement, although from this one
movement there follow many different particular motions in the existents
below it. These spheres, however, are not concerned with those particular
movements, but their only intention is to conserve the species of which
these particulars are the particulars, not to conserve the existence of any
of these particulars in so far as they are particulars, for, if so, heaven
would surely possess imagination.
The question that still needs to be examined is whether the temporal
particulars which proceed from the heavenly movement are intended for
their own sake or only for the preservation of the species. ‘ This question
cannot be treated here, but it certainly seems that there exists a
providence as concerns individuals, as appears from true dreams and the
like, e. g. the prognostication of the future; however, in reality this is a
providence concerning the species.
Ghazali says:
The third proposition-and this indeed is a very bold
presumptionis that they say that, when heaven represents
particular movements, it also represents their results and
consequences. This is pure nonsense, like saying that, when
a man moves himself and knows his movement, he must
also know the consequences of his movement vertically and
horizontally (that is, the bodies which are above and under
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