 But what then grounds these normal types of causal connections we typically anticipate? If they are not grounded in the natures or essences of things, what is their source? As we saw in the long quote from TF 170, al-Ghazālī not surprisingly holds that “[t]heir connection is due to the prior decree of God, who creates them side by side, not to its being necessary in itself, incapable of separation.” In other words, the law-like relations that we typically think to hold between creaturely natures are actually grounded in divine decrees.