And, after refuting the arguments of those who agreed with him, he argued against a beginningless succession of newly occurring things on the grounds that this would entail that something newly occurring is eternal. This argument is weak.

For his opponent says: “The individual newly occurring things are not eternal; only their kind is eternal. Thus, what is described as eternal is not what is described as newly occurring.” He may then be asked: “If you cannot establish a proof against an infinite regress of effects, and proving the existence of the Maker depends, in your view, upon this, what benefit is there in denying that newly occurring things can inhere in something whose existence you have not established by proof, let alone its eternity?”

He said:
“The difficulty lies only in the first three premises.”

He said: “For someone might say: ‘When you say that every newly occurring attribute must have an opposite, either by “opposite” you mean something positively existent whose coexistence with that attribute is impossible by virtue of their very natures, or you mean something broader: whatever cannot conceivably coexist with the attribute by virtue of their very natures, even if it is an absence. Thus, the absence of an attribute would be said to be the opposite of its existence. If you mean the former, we do not concede that an attribute must have an opposite in that sense. Offering a proof on the disputed point is exceedingly difficult. If you mean the latter, we do not concede that