of what is temporally originated. There must therefore be another kind of knowledge of existing things, whose mode cannot be defined: eternal knowledge.

He said:
“How can one imagine that the Peripatetic philosophers hold that eternal knowledge does not encompass particulars, when they hold that it is the source of forewarnings in dreams, revelation, and other forms of inspiration?”

He said:
“This, then, is what has become clear to us concerning this difficulty, and it admits of neither dispute nor doubt.”

I say:
One might object that what he has said provides no answer. His distinction between eternal and temporally originated knowledge—namely, that the former causes existence while the latter results from it—is a position held by one group of philosophers. A group of theologians has opposed them, maintaining that no knowledge causes anything to exist. Rather, knowledge corresponds to its object as it actually is, neither conferring an attribute upon it nor acquiring an attribute from it.

The former say, “His knowledge is an act,” while the latter deny this.

The truth of the matter is that both kinds of knowledge—the Creator’s knowledge and the creature’s knowledge—can be divided into knowledge that affects the existence of its object and knowledge that does not. An instance of the latter is Allah’s knowledge of Himself, glory be to Him, for this knowledge is not the cause of His existence. It is therefore impermissible to state without qualification that such knowledge causes existence.