This idea was “repugnant” to al-Ghazali...

This idea was “repugnant” to al-Ghazali, for, according to rational necessity, one could not say that the soul of one person is the same as another,[^38] in that each person necessarily knows that their soul is unique to them and that they are not similar to another. Moreover, if all souls were identical, then they would be equal in regard to their attributes and cognition, which experience witnesses that they are not.

Furthermore, how can an infinite one, here a single infinite soul, be divided into two or one thousand? An infinite cannot be divisible. As such, philosophically speaking, asserting that the universe is infinite and eternal is illogical. Second, later in the same proof, al-Ghazali turned to a second objection to the philosophers’ doctrine. “You deem the occurrence of a temporal event through an eternal improbable when it is incumbent on you to acknowledge it.

For in the world there are events which have cause. If temporal events were to depend on [other] temporal events ad infinitum , this would be impossible.”[^39] If this were so, there is no need to acknowledge a Maker. Al-Ghazali recorded that the philosophers might reply that their rejection was not the improbability of the temporal event proceeding from an eternal, rather, they Deem improbable the proceeding from an eternal an event that is a first event.

For the state of coming into existence does not differ from what precedes it with respect to the preponderance of the direction of existence, whether in terms of the presence of a temporal moment, an organ, a condition, a nature, a purpose, or any cause.

But if the event is not the first event, then it is possible [for a temporal event] to proceed from [an eternal] with the temporal occurrence of some other thing, such as a preparedness in the receptacle, the presence of suitable time, or something of that sort.[^40] Al-Ghazali responded that putting aside ideas of preparedness, suitable time, and something coming anew, the question remained that these temporal events are either infinite or finite, ending at the eternal.[^41] Al-Ghazali then commented that philosophers will appeal to their theory of emanation, stating that the basis of all temporal events is the “perpetual, eternal circular of the heavens…[based in] the souls of the heavens.”[^42] For just as the human soul moves the human body, so too do the heavenly souls move the heavenly bodies.

It is these movements that cause temporal events to occur.