To this we reply: The notion that a thing’s existence derives neither from itself nor from anything else is self-evidently false. Someone presenting a proof is not required to posit and refute every self-evidently false notion, for this would have no end. One mentions only those possibilities that have actually been proposed or have occurred to mind. A sound mind, which recognizes the falsity of such a supposition self-evidently, neither raises it itself nor has it raised against it by others. Such objections arise only when there is doubt or confusion. If we suppose that someone doubts this, then that person needs an explanation. We have already said that sophistical objections have no fixed limit or finite number.

This is analogous to someone saying:

“A thing that came into being after not having existed did not bring itself into being.”

These are all self-evident truths, known necessarily and innately, and are among the clearest matters to rational people.

If someone presenting a proof had to mention every possibility that might occur to anyone, even when its falsity was self-evident, he would say:

“If a contingent thing does not exist through itself, then it is brought into existence either by something or by nothing. If something brings it into existence, then that which does so either brings it into existence while itself nonexistent or brings it into existence while itself existent.”

He would then seek to refute the second alternative by saying that what brings something into existence cannot do so while itself nonexistent, as a group of theologians have done. When seeking to refute this, he would say:

“What is nonexistent cannot bring anything into existence, because in nonexistence nothing is distinguishable from anything else, and that which brings something into existence