upon what arises from its fellow causes.
As for the Necessary-in-Himself, whom they style the First Cause and the First Principle, His effusion depends on nothing outside His own Essence, nor does He have a partner who can dispense with Him. On the contrary, everything other than Him proceeds from Him and is His handiwork; they themselves call it His effect, what He necessitates, and the like. It is therefore inadmissible to claim that the effusion of the Lord—exalted is He—awaits the occurrence of some event beyond Him, as they allow in the case of the Active Intellect according to their doctrine and the analogy they draw from it.
Muslims, however, recognize no real existence for an “Active Intellect.” Instead, they illustrate the matter with the sun: once it rises, its light and warmth are universally diffused, although their reception depends on the presence of suitable dispositions and capacities. Should a roof or a cloud block the influx of its light and heat, and the obstruction later disappear, the light and warmth reappear without any new act arising within the sun itself; the change is solely due to something that occurred outside it.
Second objection:
The Necessary-in-Himself, the Eternal, Lord of all worlds—whom they call the First Cause and the First Principle—must be either (1) a complete cause from pre-eternity in His own right, meaning that He Himself necessitates and brings forth effects, as they assert; or (2) His act of necessitation depends on something other than Himself.
If the first alternative is adopted, then all that He necessitates and produces must be concomitant with Him from pre-eternity, so all His effects would be eternal. Yet each particular event is not eternal; consequently none of them would be among His effects, and none of them would originate from Him, whether through an intermediary or otherwise. It would follow that these occurrences have no producer whatsoever, for there is no other eternal Necessary Being who could function as the origin and cause of events, directly or through any intermediary.
If, on the other hand, it is said that His necessitation depends on something outside Himself, He would no longer be a complete cause, and so