the other two positions, since an agent may produce an effect to which its action relates when that effect comes into being; or it may produce an action relating to an effect that has no existence except through that action’s relation to it. What distinguishes this latter agent is that its action is coextensive with the existence of that effect. Such is the case of the mover in relation to motion and to things whose existence consists solely in motion,” can be answered as follows:

Nothing of this second kind is found among the things we observe. Rather, the agents we observe are exclusively of the first kind.

If you say, “The soul moves the body in this manner,” the response is:

The claim that the soul alone moves the body, without there being any other cause of motion, would not—even if true—be something established by observation.

Moreover, no rational person says that the soul is what produces the body.

Furthermore, the soul and the body are each a condition for the motion of the other.

[Fifth Argument]

It may be said:

We concede that an agent upon which its effect continually depends is more perfect than one upon which its effect depends only when coming into being.

But to say that created things continually depend upon the Creator is a true statement, and this is not analogous to either of the two kinds you mentioned.

Indeed, to say that He continually produces the composition of the world, and that its composition cannot subsist without Him, would be better than your predecessors’ statement that He continually produces the motion of the world—if indeed they held that view.

How much more so, then, when their position actually amounts to saying that He does nothing at all?