 In discussing the fundamental traits of the Necessary Existent, al-Ghazali considers the implications of the divine attribute of absolute simplicity to the scope of divine causation and conception of the universe. Al-Ghazali explains, following Avicenna, that from what is one and simple (i.e., the Necessary Existent) only one thing may proceed (Maqāṣid: 157; cf. al-Shifāʾ [Metaphysics]: 326–334; al-Najāt: 649–657). Underlying this understanding of the scope of divine causation is a conception of the relationship between cause and effect as one of correspondence; “the action must be consistent with the essential nature of its cause” (Kogan 1984: 249). Thus, a single cause has one act and produces only a single effect. In keeping with this conception, and considering the absolute simplicity of the First Principle, al-Ghazali, describes an emanationist cosmology in which the First Principle causes multiplicity not directly, but through a chain of emanative intermediaries that successively proceed from one another. The First Principle produces only one entity, the first intellect, by thinking Itself. In turn, the first intellect produces, by thinking its Cause and itself, the second intellect and the first celestial sphere (Maqāṣid: 157). The reason for this multiplicity is that the first intellect is not absolutely simple like the First Principle, but complex: in addition to thinking its Principle, it thinks itself insofar as it is possible and insofar as it is necessary by virtue of the First Principle. The process of emanation continues in a descending manner, terminating with the Active Intellect, the intellect of the sphere of the moon which is the immediate source of the forms of sublunary entities.