 It would be wrong, however, to conclude from this argument that al-Ghazâlî denied the existence of causal connections. While such connections cannot be proven through observation (or through any other means), they may or may not exist. In the First Position al-Ghazâlî rejects the view that the connection between an efficient cause and its effect is simply necessary per se, meaning that the proximate cause alone is fully responsible for the effect and that nothing else is also necessary for the effect to occur. In another work this position is described as one held by “materialists” (dahriyyûn) who deny that the world has a cause or a maker (al-Ghazâlî 1959a, 19 = 2000b, 61). The Mu’tazilite view of tawallud, meaning that humans are the sole creators of their own actions and their immediate effects, also falls under this position (al-Ghazâlî 2000, 226.13–14). Like in the connection between a father and his son, where the father is not the only efficient cause for the son’s existence, so there may be in every causal connection efficient causes involved other than the most obvious or the most proximate one. The proximate efficient cause may be just the last element in a long chain of efficient causes that extends via the heavenly realm. The intellects of the celestial spheres, which were thought to be referred to in revelation as “angels,” may be middle elements or intermediaries in causal chains that all have its beginning in God. Al-Ghazâlî rejects the position of the materialists and the Mu’tazilites because it does not take account of the fact that God is the ultimate efficient cause of the observed effect. God may create this effect directly or by way of secondary causality. Discussing the example that when fire touches a ball of cotton it causes it to combust, al-Ghazâlî writes about the First Position that the fire alone causes combustion: