If they wish to establish the Necessary Existent in itself, they say:

“The eternal—which they have called contingent—needs something necessary in itself.”

This is not self-evident; most rational people dispute it with them, and they cannot furnish proof of it. What they have called contingent is eternal, beginningless, and necessary in existence. Such a thing does not establish anything necessary in itself. Moreover, its own existence has not been established. Thus, they have established neither this contingent being nor the necessary being whose existence they seek to infer from it. They have therefore established neither the contingent being they claim nor the necessary being they claim.

Ibn Rushd said:

“If by the contingent we understand that which has a cause yet is necessary, all that follows is that whatever has a cause has a cause.”

I say: This is because, if he divides existence into that which has a cause and that which has no cause, calls the former contingent, and then divides this contingent into the genuinely contingent—which is what comes into being—and the necessary—which is the eternal that has a cause—all that follows is the establishment of something eternal that has a cause. That is, this necessary being that has a cause is a necessary being that has a cause. This assumes that he has established the existence of this category. He would then have established something necessary and necessarily existent that has a cause.

He said:

“If that which is necessary and necessarily existent can have a cause, it is also possible that this cause, even if it is necessary and necessarily existent