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Al-Ghazzali - The Alchemy of Happiness - 09 The soul as a mean of understanding God

Not only are man’s attributes a reflection of God’s attributes, but the mode of existence of man’s soul affords some insight into God’s mode of existence.

That is to say, both God and the soul are invisible, indivisible, unconfined by space and time, and outside the categories of quantity and quality; nor can the ideas of shape, colour, or size attach to them.

People find it hard to form a conception of such realities as are devoid of quality and quantity, etc., but a similar difficulty attaches to the conception of our every-day feelings, such as anger, pain, pleasure, or love.

They are thought-concepts, and cannot be cognised by the senses; whereas quality, quantity, etc., are sense-concepts. Just as the ear cannot take cognisance of colour, nor the eye of sound, so, in conceiving of the ultimate realities, God and the soul, we find ourselves in a region in which sense-concepts can bear no part.