 While the Soul is invoked as the source of life in bodies, its primary function in al-Rāzī’s philosophy is to facilitate a distinctive theodicy. The presence of great suffering in the world, alongside the aforementioned good design of that world, shows that it cannot have been created directly by God. Furthermore, al-Rāzī is concerned with a traditional argument against the eternity of the universe, namely that a perfectly wise and rational God could not arbitrarily choose a moment for the universe to begin existing. Both problems are solved by postulating a Soul which is “foolish” where God is wise. The Soul conceives of a desire or even passion (ʿishq) to be “mixed” with matter, which initiates the process of the world’s creation. God intervenes to make the world as good as it can be, but our bodily life is still inevitably full of pain.