Page:The philosophy and theology of Averroes.djvu/37

 any well grounded consensus of opinion in the interpretations which God has ascribed to the learned men. That is quite evident to anyone with insight. But with this we see that Abu Hamid (Al Ghazzali) has made a mistake in ascribing to the Peripatetic Philosophers the opinion that God has no knowledge of particulars. They are only of opinion that the knowledge of God about particulars is quite different from ours. For our knowledge is the effect of the existence of a thing. Such knowledge is produced by the existence of a tiling, and changes with changes in the thing. On the other hand the knowledge of God is the cause of an existent thing. Thus one who compares these two kinds of knowledge ascribes the same characteristics to two quite different things—and that is extreme ignorance. When applied both to eternal and to transitory things the word knowledge is used only in a fashion, just as we use many other words for objects essentially different, For