[The second approach]

It is to resolve the objection he raised in his statement:

“This is because a thing may be a cause of the aggregate insofar as it is a cause of the aggregate considered as an aggregate, without being a cause of each of its parts. For the Necessary Existent in itself is the cause of the aggregate of all existents, but not of each of its parts, since it cannot be its own cause.”

We reply:

We do not concede that the Necessary Existent in itself is the cause of the aggregate of all existents. Rather, it is the cause of some existents, namely, contingent existents. As for the existent that is necessary in itself, it has no cause, yet it is one of the existents. If existents—if existents are divided into necessary and contingent, and the Necessary Existent is the cause of contingent existents, then the Necessary Existent is not the cause of the aggregate of all existents. Rather, it is the cause of some of them, while others have no cause.

If it is said:

“We said only that the Necessary Existent is the cause of the aggregate considered as an aggregate, not of each individual constituent. Thus, it is the cause of the collective configuration.”

The reply is:

First, we do not concede that the aggregate has an existence over and above that of its individual constituents.

Second, even if the aggregate—that is, the collective configuration—is assumed to be something distinct from the individual constituents, then, if one of those constituents is the cause of the collective configuration, the cause is distinct from the effect: the cause is not part of the effect.