And this is the Necessary Existent according to Ibn Sīnā and his followers. The philosophers before Ibn Sīnā, however, did not reserve this designation for the First, since, in their view, everything eternal is necessarily existent. Only someone who says, “He alone is eternal,” would reserve the designation “Necessary Existent” for Him. This is not the position of Aristotle and his followers, although it is the position of the vast majority of rational people, both adherents of religious traditions and others.

[The Claims of Aristotle and His Followers]

The claims of Aristotle and his followers are false for several reasons:

(First Argument)

They regarded the First as the agent of celestial motion only insofar as it is an object of love and longing which the celestial sphere seeks to emulate—not as the creator that brings motion into existence.

It is well known that an object of love toward which another moves out of love and longing—especially when it is loved for the sake of emulation rather than for its own sake, just as someone praying behind an imam emulates his imam—does not thereby become the creator that brings motion into existence. It is merely a final cause, not an efficient cause. Thus, they did not establish that the One whose existence is necessary in itself is the agent of any temporally originated thing, as has been explained at length in its proper place.

Aristotle and his followers acknowledge that, in their view, the First does nothing, knows nothing, and wills nothing.

[Second Argument]

Even supposing that they establish the First as the creator and originator of the motion without which there can be no subsistence