It is thus clear that anyone who imagines that infinitely many contingent causes—which are themselves infinitely many effects—could have an infinite effect has merely posited the existence of infinitely many effects with no cause among them.

If finitely many effects must have a cause, then infinitely many effects must all the more have one, for the very nature of an effect entails dependence on a cause.

This becomes clear when we consider the meanings used to describe a contingent thing. If a single thing of this kind is posited, it necessarily entails its cause, that which necessitates it, its maker, the agent that produces it, and its originator. If two are posited, this entailment is stronger; and if infinitely many are posited, it is stronger still. For if one of them is impossible without the Necessary Existent, then two amount to two impossible things, and positing infinitely many of them amounts to positing infinitely many impossible things.

If it is said:

“The existence of one of them entails the existence of the Necessary Existent,”

then positing