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Ghazali says:

The philosophers have also affirmed that heaven is an animal which obeys God by movement and by drawing near Him; for every voluntary movement arises for the sake of an end, since one cannot imagine that an act and a movement can proceed from an animal which does not prefer the act to its omission-indeed, if the act and its omission were to be equipollent, no act could be imagined.

Further, approach to God does not mean seeking His grace and guarding oneself from His wrath, since God is too exalted for wrath and grace; similar words can only be applied to Him metaphorically, and they are used in a metaphorical way when one speaks of His will to punish or to reward. ‘ Approach cannot mean the seeking of an approach to Him in space, for this is impossible; the only meaning it can have is of an approach in qualities, for God’s existence is the most perfect and every other existence is imperfect in relation to His, and in this imperfection there are degrees and distinctions. The angels are nearest to Him in quality, not in place; and this is the meaning of the term ‘the angels in His proximity’ -namely, the intellectual substances which neither change nor alter nor pass away, and which know things as they really are. And the nearer man comes to the angels in qualities the nearer he comes to God, and the end of man’s nature lies in assimilation to the angels.

And when it is established that this is the meaning of ‘approach to God’, and that it refers to seeking approach to Him in qualities, then this consists for man in knowledge of the realities of the existents and in his remaining eternally in the most perfect condition possible to him; for indeed permanence in the utmost perfection is God.

As to the angels in His proximity, any perfection that is possible for them is actual with them in their existence, since there is no potency in them which could emerge into act, ‘ and therefore they are in the utmost perfection in regard to everything but God. And by ‘heavenly angels’ is meant the souls which move the heavens, and in them there is potency, and their perfections are divided into what is actual, like their circular shape and their appearance, which exists always, and what is potential, namely their appearance in a definite position and place; for any definite position is possible to them, but they are not actually in all positions, for to be in all of them at once is impossible. And since they cannot be at all times in all particular positions at once, they try to exhaust all these particular positions by being in them specifically, so that they do not cease to aim at one position and one place after another; and this potentiality is never ending, nor do these movements ever end.

But their one aim is to assimilate themselves to the First Principle, in the acquisition of the utmost perfection within the bounds of possibility with respect to Him, and this is the meaning of the obedience of the heavenly angels to God. And their assimilation is acquired in two ways. First, in completing every position specifically possible, and this is aimed at by first intention; secondly, by the order proceeding from their movement through the diversity of their configuration in trine and quartile, in conjunction and opposition, and through the diversity in the ascendant in relation to the earth, so that the good which is in the sublunary world can emanate from it, and all that happens arise from it. And every soul is intellective and longs for the perfection of its essence.

I say:

Everything he says here about the philosophers is a philosophical doctrine, or its consequence, or can be regarded as a philosophical doctrine, with one exception, when he says that heaven seeks by its movement the particular positions which are infinite; however, what is infinite cannot be sought, since it cannot be attained. Nobody has held this doctrine but Avicenna, and Ghazali’s objection to it, which we will mention later, is sufficient, and according to the philosophers it is the movement itself in so far as it is movement which is aimed at by heavens For the perfection of an animal, in so far as it is an animal, is movement; in this sublunary world rest occurs to the transitory animal only by accident, that is through the necessity of matter, for lassitude and fatigue touch the animal only because it is in matter. b The whole life and perfection of those animals which are not affected by tiredness and languor must of necessity lie in their movement; and their assimilation to their Creator consists in this, that by their movement they impart life to what exists in this sublunary world.

This movement, however, does not occur according to the philosophers in first intention for the sake of this sublunary world; that is, the heavenly body is not in first intention created for the sake of this sublunary world. For indeed this movement is the special act for the sake of which heaven is created, and if this movement occurred in first intention for the sake of the sublunary world, the body of the heavens would be created only for the sake of this sublunary world, and it is impossible, according to the philosophers, that the superior should be created for the sake of the inferior; on the contrary, out of the superior there follows the existence of the inferior, just as the perfection of the ruler in relation to his subject does not lie in his being a ruler, but his being a ruler is only the consequence of his perfection. In the same way the providence which prevails in this world is like the care of the ruler for his subjects, who have no salvation and no existence except in him, and especially in the ruler who for his most perfect and noble existence does not need to be a ruler, let alone that he should need his subjects’ existence. ‘

Ghazali says:

The objection to this is that in the premisses of this argument there are controversial points. We shall not, however, pay any attention to them, but shall revert at once to the final intention the philosophers had in view and refute it from two standpoints.

The first is to say: ‘To seek perfection through being in all possible places may be foolishness rather than obedience; is it not in some degree like a man, who has no occupation and who has adequate means to satisfy his wishes and needs, and who gets up and walks round in a country or in a house, and declares that by doing so he approaches God and that he perfects himself by arriving at all possible places, and says that it is possible for him to be in these places, but not possible for him to unite all the places numerically, and that therefore he fulfils this task specifically and that in this there is perfection and an approach to God? Indeed, it is his foolishness which makes him do such a stupid thing, and it may be said that to change positions and pass from place to place is not a perfection which has any value or which may be an object of desire.

And there is no difference between what they say and this.

I say:

It might be thought that the silliness of such an argument either comes from a very ignorant or from a very wicked man. Ghazali, however, has neither of these dispositions. But sometimes unwise words come by way of exception from a man who is not ignorant, and wicked talk from a man who is not wicked, and it shows the imperfection of people that such conceits can be addressed to them.

But if we concede to Avicenna that the sphere aims through its movement at a change of positions, that this change of positions is what conserves the beings of this sublunary world after giving them their existence, and that this action is everlasting, can there then exist an obedience more complete than this? For instance, if a man exerted himself in guarding a city against the enemy, going round the city day and night, should we not regard this as a most important act of approach to God? But if we assumed that he moved round the town for the end which Ghazali attributes to Avicenna, namely that he only sought to perfect himself through trying to be in an infinite number of places, he would be declared mad. ‘ And this is the meaning of the Divine Words: ‘Verily thou canst not cleave the earth, and thou shalt not reach the mountains in height. ‘2

And his assertion that, since heaven cannot complete the individual numerical positions or join them, it has to complete them specifically, is a faulty, incomprehensible expression, unless he means that its movement has to last in its totality since it cannot be lasting in its parts. For there are movements which are lasting neither in their parts nor in their totality, namely the movements of the transitory; and there are movements which are lasting in their totality, transitory in their parts, but notwithstanding this such a movement is said to be one in ways which are distinguished in many passages of the books of the philosophers. And his assertion that, since heaven cannot complete them numerically, it completes them specifically, is erroneous, since the movement of heaven is numerically one, and one can only apply such an expression to the transitory movements in the sublunary world; for these movements, since they cannot be numerically one, are specifically one and lasting through the movement which is numerically one.

Ghazali says:

The second is to say: What you assert of the aim can be realized through the movement from west to east. Why, then, is the first movement from east to west, and why are not all the movements of the universe in the same direction? And if there is an intention in their diversity, why are they not different in an opposite way, so that the movement from the east should become the movement from the west, and the reverse? Everything you have mentioned of the occurrence of events like trine and sextile and others through the diversity of movements would happen just the same through the reverse. Also, what you have mentioned of the completion of the positions and places would happen just the same if the movement were in the opposite direction. Why then, since the reverse movement is possible for them, do they not move sometimes in one direction, sometimes in another, to complete all their possibilities, if it is in the completion of all their possibilities that their perfection lies? It is therefore shown that all these things are phantasms without any substance; for the secrets of the heavenly kingdom cannot be attained through such phantasms. God alone can manifest them to His prophets and saints through revelation, not through proof, and therefore the later philosophers are unable to give the reason for the direction of the movement of the heavenly bodies and why they have chosen it.

I say:

This objection is sophistical, for the transference from one question to another is an act of sophistry. Why does there follow, from their inability to assign the reason of the diversity in the directions of the movements of heaven, their inability to give the reason for the movement of heaven or to say that there is no reason at all for this movement? But this whole argument is extremely weak and feeble. However, how happy the theologians are about this problem! They believe that they have refuted the philosophers over it, since they are ignorant of the different arguments by which the philosophers have arrived at their reasons and of the many reasons that are required and must be assigned to every existent, since the causes differ through the variety in the natures of the existents. For simple existents have no other cause for what proceeds from them than their own natures and their forms, , but in composite things there are found, beside their forms, efficient causes which produce their composition and the conjunction of their parts. The earth, for instance, has no other cause for its downward movement than its attribute of earthiness, and fire has no other cause for its upward movement than its own nature and its form, and through this nature it is said to be the opposite of earth. Likewise, for up and down there are no reasons why the one direction should be higher and the other lower, but this is determined by their nature. And since the differentiation of directions is determined through the directions themselves, and the differentiation of the movements through the differentiation of the directions, no other reason can be assigned for the variation in the movements than the variation in the directions of the things moved, and the variation in their natures depends on the variation of their natures; i. e. some are nobler than others.

For instance, when a man sees that animals in walking place one leg in front of their body before the other and not the reverse, and asks why the animal does this, there is no sufficient answer except to say that an animal in its movement must have one leg to put forward and one to support itself on, and therefore an animal must have two sides, right and left, and the right is the one which is always put forward first because of its special potency and the left the one which always, or mostly, follows, because of its special potency; and it cannot be the reverse, so that the left side became the right, since the natures of the animal determine this, either through a determination in a majority of cases, or through a constant determination.

The same is the case with the heavenly bodies since, if a person asks why heaven moves in a particular direction, the answer is that it is because it has a right and a left, and especially because it is evident from its nature that it is a living being, only it has the peculiarity that the right side in a part of it is the left side in another part, z and that although it has only this one organ of locomotion it moves in opposite directions like a left foot which can also do the work of a right . And just as the answer to the question whether the animal would not be more perfect if its right were its left, and why the right has been differentiated to be the right, and the left to be the left, is that the only reason for this is that the nature of the side called right has been determined by its essence to be the right and not the left, and that the left side has been determined by its essence to be the left and not the right, and the noblest has been attributed to the noblest; in the same way, when it is asked why the right side has been differentiated for the movement of the highest sphere to be the right and the left side to be the left (for the reverse was also possible as the case of the planets shows), the only answer is that the noblest direction has been attributed to the noblest body, as upward movement has been attributed to fire, downward movement to earth. As to the fact that the other heavens move in two contrary movements’ besides the diurnal, this happens because of the necessity of this opposition of movements for the sublunary world, namely the movement of generation and corruption, b and it is not of the nature of the human intellect that it should apprehend more in such discussions and in this place than what we have mentioned.

Having made this objection against the philosophers and asserted that they have no answer to it, he mentions an answer which some of the philosophers give.

Ghazali says:

Some philosophers say that since the perfection occurs through movement, from whatever side it may be, and the order of events on earth requires a diversity of movements and a determination of directions, the motive concerning them of the principle of movement lies in the approach to God’ and the motive of the direction of movement in the diffusion of good over the sublunary world. But we answer: ‘This is false for two reasons. The first is: if one may imagine such a thing, let us declare that the nature of heaven demands rest, and must avoid movement and change, for this is in truth assimilation to God; for God is too exalted to change, and movement is a change, although God chose movement for the diffusion of His grace. For through it He is useful to others and it does not weigh on Him nor tire Him-so what is the objection to such a supposition?

‘The second is that events are based on the diversity of the relations which result from the diversity in the directions of the movements. Now let the first movement be a movement from the west, and let the others move from the east, then the same diversity will arise as is needed for the diversity of the relations. Why then has one direction been specially chosen, since these varieties require only the principle of variety and in this sense one direction by itself is not superior to its contrary? ‘

I say:

This theologian wants to indicate the cause of this from the point of view of the final cause, not of the efficient, and none of the philosophers doubts that there is here a final cause in second intention, which is necessary for the existence of everything in the sublunary world. And although this cause has not yet been ascertained in detail, nobody doubts that every movement, every progression or regression of the stars, has an influence on sublunary existence, so that, if these movements differed, the sublunary world would become disorganized. But many of these causes are either still completely unknown or become known after a long time and a long experience, z as it is said that Aristotle asserted in his book On Astrological Theorems. 3

As to the general questions, it is easier to discover them, and the astrologers have indeed come to know many of them and in our own time many of these things have been apprehended which ancient nations, like the Chaldaeans and others, had already discovered.

And for this reason one cannot doubt that there is a wisdom in the existents, since it has become clear through induction that everything which appears in heaven is there through provident wisdom and through a final cause. And if there are final causes in animals, it is still more appropriate that there should be final causes in the heavenly bodies. ‘ For in the case of man and animal about ten thousand signs of providence, have become known in a period of a thousand years, and it seems not impossible that in the infinite course of years much of the purpose of the heavenly bodies will come to light. ‘ And we find that about these things the ancients give some mysterious indications which the initiated, that is the most highly reputed of the philosophers, know how to interpret.

As to the two reasons in Ghazali’s argument, the first, that assimilation to God would determine heaven to be at rest, since God is too exalted for movement, but that God has chosen movement because through it His grace can be diffused over transitory things-this is a faulty argument, since God is neither at rest nor moving, ‘ and the motion of body is nobler for it than rest, and when an existent assimilates itself to God it assimilates itself to Him by being in the noblest of its states, which is movement. As to Ghazali’s second point, it has been answered previously.