an originated event, whether through an intermediary or without one, for it is inherently impossible for originated events to proceed from a complete, eternal cause.
If they say that motion occurs through its mediation—that is, through the mediation of the celestial sphere’s motion—they may be told: The very issue under discussion is the origination of celestial motion. Motion that comes into being successively cannot be brought about by a complete, eternal cause that necessarily entails its effect, for this would combine two contradictories. To maintain that an effect coexists with its cause from eternity and exists alongside it contradicts the claim that the effect, or any part of it, does not exist from eternity. Indeed, what brings about this motion cannot be a simple essence in which no attributes or states subsist that entail the occurrence of successive, differing events. Nor can it be an essence endowed with attributes but in which no states subsist that necessitate the occurrence of the events mentioned. For the renewal and multiplicity found in effects cannot proceed from a single cause that is simple in every respect. Thus, the true substance of their position is that events in the higher and lower realms have no originator.
These thinkers say that Allah’s speech is what emanates upon purified souls, just as Allah’s angels, according to them, are the luminous forms that take shape within those souls. Thus, they affirm no speech of His beyond what exists in human souls, nor any angels beyond what exists in their souls, apart from “the ten intellects” and “the nine celestial souls,” although most of them say that they are accidents. It has been demonstrated elsewhere that the immaterial entities they posit