will be explained (III. xiii. and xvii.), and the final answer will be, “It is the will of God.” According to the view of others, which will likewise be explained, the final purpose is the execution of the decree of His wisdom, and the final answer will be, “It has been decreed by His wisdom.” According to either opinion, the series of the successive purposes terminates, as has been shown, in God’s will or wisdom, which, in our opinion, are identical with His essence, and are not any thing separate from Himself or different from His essence. Consequently, God is the final purpose of everything. Again, it is the aim of everything to become, according to its faculties, similar to God in perfection; this is meant by the expression, “His will, which is identical with His essence,” as will be shown below (ibid.). In this sense God is called the End of all ends. I have thus explained to you in what sense God is said to be the Agens, the Form, and the End. This is the reason why the philosophers not only call Him “the Maker” but also the “Cause.” Some of the scholars belonging to the Mutakallemim (Mohammedan theologians), went so far in their folly and in their vainglory as to say that the non-existence of the Creator, if that were possible, would not necessarily imply the non-existence of the things created by Him, i.e., the Universe: for a production need not necessarily cease to exist when the producer, after having produced it, has ceased to exist. They would be right, if God were only the maker of the Universe, and if its permanent existence were not dependent on Him. The storehouse does not cease to exist at the death of the builder; for he does not give permanent existence to the building. God, however, is Himself the form of the Universe, as we have already shown, and it is He who causes its continuance and permanency. It is therefore wrong to say that a thing can remain durable and permanent, after the being that makes it durable and permanent has ceased to exist, since that thing can possess no more durability and permanency than it has received from that being. Now you understand the greatness of the error into which they have fallen through their assumption that God is only the Agens, and not the End or the Form. CHAPTER LXX