for the celestial sphere and the world, as Ibn Rushd and others like him may claim, it would only be the agent of a condition for the world’s existence, not the agent of the world’s substances themselves and all its accidents. Rather, it would be the agent of just one of its accidents: motion, without which they claim the world cannot subsist.

This is very far indeed from making it the originator of the world, especially if they hold that it produces motion by virtue of being an object of love. This would amount to saying that every object of love brings into being the lover who cannot subsist without that love—or rather, that an imam followed in prayer brings into being the person praying behind him, because that person needs to follow him.

It is well known that no rational person would say this. Indeed, it implies that a necessarily existent being—such as the celestial sphere, according to Aristotle and his followers—depends on something separate from itself, which demonstrates the falsity of their position. Thus, what is true in the statements of Aristotle and his followers demonstrates the falsity of the later philosophers’ position, while what is true in the later philosophers’ statements concerning the Necessary Existent demonstrates the falsity of the position of Aristotle and his followers.

[Third Argument]

There is no evidence that the world cannot exist without motion; indeed, this is false. The most that can be said is that it could exist, but would be imperfect.

It is well known that this is the case with all other created beings endowed with attributes of perfection: the absence of some of their attributes entails only their imperfection, not their nonexistence.