cease to exist. It is self-evident that the nature of what comes into being requires something eternal, and that the nature of the contingent requires something necessary, as has been explained at length elsewhere.

Since existents are divided into the eternal and that which comes into being, and into the necessary and the contingent, it is known that both share the designations of existence, quiddity, essence, reality, and so forth, while the necessarily existent possesses what nothing else shares with it.

Indeed, it is self-evident that the necessarily existent has a reality peculiar to it, which nothing else shares ن. If everything possessing something peculiar to itself requires something distinct from it, then the reality of that which is necessary in itself would require a determining cause distinct from it. There would consequently be nothing eternal or necessary among existents, implying that things come into being without anything bringing them into being, and that contingent things exist without a necessarily existent being.

Not only is this self-evidently invalid, but no rational person has maintained it. Rather, the furthest the unbelieving, negationist eternalist goes is to say:

“The world is eternal and necessarily existent in itself.”

He does not say:

“It is contingent and has come into being without a creator.”

If the eternalist says that the world is necessarily existent in itself, he must concede that what is necessary in itself is distinguished from other things by attributes that nothing else shares with it—for example, things that come into being, such as animals, plants, and minerals.

In short, every rational person is compelled to affirm an existent necessary in itself that has