And if they said, ‘A material form,’ the First Principle would, in their view, be nothing but one body among others, which they do not maintain. Likewise, if they said, ‘It is a final cause,’ this too would accord with their principles. Given the ambiguity you see in this statement, how can it properly be offered as an answer on behalf of the philosophers?”

He discussed this at length, but his remarks do not constitute an objection to Abū Hāmid, for he knew that Abū Hāmid meant the efficient cause here, not the other three kinds. They call the First Principle the First Cause and say that everything other than it emanates from it. Thus, what Abū Hāmid presented was the best possible formulation of their doctrine as they themselves state it. There is therefore no need for a verbal objection on the grounds that the term is equivocal. This merely makes the discussion needlessly difficult and departs from the point.

Seeking clarification when the intended meaning is evident is a form of contentiousness in debate, and the man most hateful to Allah is the stubbornly contentious disputant.

Then Ibn Rushd objected to the two arguments that Abū Hāmid had presented. He addressed the first argument, namely that, consistently following their doctrine, they must hold that the Creator is an eternal body without a cause, and that they had ruled this out only through their doctrine of divine unity and the negation of attributes—a doctrine that Abū Hāmid had refuted.