eternity. This shows that the existence of power from eternity entails the possibility of the object of that power existing from eternity.

This, in turn, indicates the possibility of action from eternity. There is therefore nothing here to prevent what lies within His power and is received from existing from eternity. Thus, what they advanced as an argument for negation becomes an argument for affirmation. This, however, establishes only the possibility of what is received existing from eternity. They could argue for its actual existence from eternity by saying:

If there were not always something subsisting in His essence that lies within His power and is willed by Him, it would follow that He would never bring anything into being. Yet He has brought newly arising things into being. Thus, His perpetual agency and receptivity to the things within His power and will that subsist in His essence are established.

The necessary connection can be explained as follows: if something comes into being after not having existed, and does so without a cause, this would entail giving preponderance to a contingent possibility without a determining factor, and singling out one of two equivalent alternatives—whether two moments in time or otherwise—without a specifying factor. This is impossible.

If it comes into being through a cause, the same reasoning applies to that cause as to anything else, thus entailing an infinite regress of newly arising things.

These perpetually arising things must then either arise from a complete cause that necessarily entails its effect—which is impossible, since neither the effect of a complete cause nor any part of that effect can lag behind it—or arise from something that is not a complete cause. Whatever is not a complete cause depends, in producing a newly arising thing, upon the condition that completes its agency with respect to that thing.