The same applies to our knowledge of Allah’s creations over which we have no influence, such as the heavens.
As for the second kind, it includes Allah’s knowledge of His creations, for creating them is conditional upon knowing them. As He says:
“Does He who created not know?”
[al-Mulk: 14]
Knowledge of them is therefore a condition of their existence, but it is not, by itself, the cause of their existence; power and will are also indispensable.
This is where these philosophers went astray: they held that mere knowledge of the order of created things necessitates its existence, assigning no effect to power and will, even though the effect of power and will in this regard is more evident than that of knowledge. Moreover, they contradict themselves on this point, sometimes affirming providence and will and sometimes denying them.
A person’s knowledge of the actions he intends to perform is likewise a condition of the existence of the object known. Such knowledge of this temporally originated act is a condition of its occurrence, and here the object known depends upon temporally originated knowledge. Thus, the existence of everything we know is not invariably the cause and source of our knowledge. Rather, a distinction must be drawn here between theoretical and practical knowledge. The proposed distinction is therefore invalid.
It may also be said:
There is no doubt that when an agent intends to do something and knows what he intends to do, this is not the same as knowing that it will occur. Not everyone who conceives what he intends to do knows that what he intends will occur. Indeed, each of us conceives things he wants to bring about without knowing whether they will occur—and they may never occur. Then, if someone knows that something will occur, and it subsequently occurs, he knows that it has occurred.
In our case, then, there are three kinds of knowledge. Yet, with respect to Allah, he has mentioned only the knowledge that is a prerequisite for action: the knowledge without which an agent cannot will, since willing is conditional upon conceiving what is willed.