The decisive answer is this:

What is meant by the expression “a cause that necessitates its effect by virtue of its essence”? If what is meant [by it] (1) is that it necessitates by means of an essence devoid of will and power, then such an essence has no reality and no external existence, let alone the capacity to necessitate anything.

The philosophers contradict themselves, for they affirm that the First has a purpose, and they affirm final causes in His act of creation; yet this necessarily entails will.

If they interpret purpose as mere knowledge and maintain that knowledge is nothing but the essence, this is the height of corruption and contradiction. We know by necessity that will is not merely knowledge and that knowledge is not merely (2) the knower. This, however, is one of these philosophers’ contradictions on this subject: they reduce multiple distinct meanings to one meaning (3). Thus, they make knowledge identical with power and with will, and make the attribute identical with its subject. Likewise, they make knowledge [identical with] (4) the knower, the one who possesses power identical with power itself, will identical with the one who wills, and love identical with the lover.

Their leading thinkers—and even their defenders—have stated this explicitly, such as Ibn Rushd the Grandson, who refuted [Abū Hāmid] al-Ghazālī (5) in The Incoherence of the Incoherence (6), and others like him.

Furthermore, even if the existence of an essence devoid of will and choice were assumed, it would be impossible for the universe to proceed from a cause that necessitates by virtue of its essence in this sense, because that which necessitates