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

I say:
quality or not? If the answer is in the affirmative, why then is
this quality limited to a few only of those homogeneous
parts? If the answer is negative, we reply: the other parts, in
so far as they constitute bodies, receiving the form of bodies,
are homogeneous of necessity, and there is no justification
for attributing this special quality to this spot exclusively on
account of its being a part of a body and a part of heaven,
for the other parts of heaven participate in this qualification.
Therefore its differentiation must rest on a decision by God,
or on a quality whose nature consists in differentiating
between two similars. Therefore, just as among philosophers
the theory is upheld that all times are equivalent in regard to
the creation of the world, their opponents are justified in
claiming that the parts of heaven are equivalent for the
reception of the quality through which stability in position
becomes more appropriate than a change of position. And
out of this there is no issue.
This means in brief that the philosophers must acknowledge that there is
a quality in the Creator of the world which differentiates between two
similars, for it seems that the world might have had another shape and
another quantity than it actually has, for it might have been bigger or
smaller. Those different possibilities are, therefore, equivalent in regard to
the determination of the existence of the world. On the other hand, if the
philosophers say that the world can have only one special shape, the
special quantity of its bodies and the special number of them it actually
has, and that this equivalence of possibilities can only be imagined in
relation to the times of temporal creation-since for God no moment is more
suitable than another for its creation-they may be told that it is possible to
answer this by saying that the creation of the world happened at its most
propitious moment. But we, the theologians say, want to show the
philosophers two equivalent things of which they cannot affirm that there
exists any difference between them; the first is the particular direction of
the spherical movement and the second the particular position of the
poles, relative to the spheres; for any pair whatever of opposite points,
united by a line which passes through the centre of the sphere, might
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