He then disputed the universality of the claim, saying: “Even if we concede this point, why do you maintain that every cause precedes its effect in existence? Do you not see that the essences of contingent beings are receptive to their own existence, and thus constitute receptive causes of their own existence? In this case, receptive causes need not precede their effects in existence. If that is so, why could the same not hold for an efficient cause?”

He also said: “We do not say that the causally effective principle is the nonexistent essence. Rather, the essence considered in itself is distinct from both its existence and its nonexistence. We hold that this essence alone is what causes existence.”

He said: “If it is objected, ‘Just as you allow His essence, before it exists, to cause its own existence, why could that essence not, before it exists, cause the existence of the world? It would then be impossible to infer the existence of an agent from the existence of its acts,’ we reply: The distinction between the two cases is self-evident. We know self-evidently that, unless a thing exists, it can play no part in the existence of anything else; and we know that there is nothing implausible in a thing’s existing