As for his argument for denying magnitude and shape, based on the claim that a determiner is required and that whatever has a determiner is temporally originated, he said:

“Although the first premise is conceded, the second—namely, that everything dependent on a determiner is temporally originated—and the reasoning offered to establish it are invalid in light of what has already been stated concerning the first approach.”

He said:

“Even if we grant that the attributes referred to are temporally originated, it does not follow that bodies are temporally originated, since these attributes might succeed one another in them in an infinite succession. This conclusion requires recourse to the preceding demonstration that a beginningless succession of temporally originated events leading up to it is impossible.”

He has thus stated here that, although whatever possesses determinate characteristics must have a determiner, it need not be temporally originated. Rather, it may be eternal in its essence and attributes, or eternal in essence while temporally originated attributes—magnitudes and others—succeed one another in it, unless an infinite succession of temporally originated events is held to be impossible.

It may then be said: That which is eternal is either necessary in itself or necessary through another. If it is necessary in itself, his argument is invalid. If it is necessary through another, the fact that the effect possesses determinate characteristics entails that its cause must likewise possess determinate characteristics. Otherwise, supposing that the necessitating cause is absolute existence, possessing no particular characteristic—as maintained by those who say that it is absolute existence—its relation to all the genera of existing things, their magnitudes, and their attributes would be the same. In that case, it would not single out one magnitude rather than another through entailment and necessitation, unless it is said that no other magnitude is possible.