[Further remarks by al-Ghazālī on the question of composition]

Abū Hāmid said:

“If it is said, ‘If you affirm an essence, an attribute, and the attribute’s inherence in the essence, then it is composite, and every composite requires an agent that composes it. That is why the First cannot be a body, since it is composite,’ we reply: saying that every composite requires an agent that composes it is like saying that every existent requires an agent that brings it into existence.

“The answer is: ‘The First is eternal and existent, without a cause or an agent that brings it into existence.’

“Likewise, one may say: ‘There is an eternal being possessing attributes, with no cause for its essence, its attribute, or the subsistence of its attributes in its essence. Rather, all of this is eternal and uncaused.’ A body, however, cannot be the First because it is temporally originated, since it is never free of temporally originated events. Anyone for whom the temporal origination of bodies has not been established must accept that the First Cause is a body, as we shall later compel you to concede.”

[Ibn Rushd’s comment on al-Ghazālī’s remarks]

Ibn Rushd said, objecting to Abū Hāmid: “Composition is not