  This is, however, only a part of al-Kindi’s view on divine causation. Because, as we have seen, al-Kindi thinks that to be a thing of a certain kind is to be one in a certain way, he infers that the true One is the cause of being as well as unity (see further Adamson 2002b). In particular, he believes that God is an “agent” or efficient cause. This view is expressed in a succinct text (possibly a fragment from a longer, lost work) headed with the title On the True, First, Complete Agent and the Deficient Agent that is Metaphorically [an Agent] (Abu Rida 1950, 182–4). The text begins as follows: