the Judge’s, for he based it on the principle that whatever comes into being must have an originator. He had no need to establish this by arguing that coming into being involves being assigned one time rather than another, and that such determination requires a determining agent. Although this is true, the knowledge that whatever comes into being needs an originator is clearer and more certain than this.

Everything said about determining one of two times, or assigning something one attribute rather than another, also applies to coming into being itself. For singling out this particular thing to come into being, rather than other possible things, must have a determining agent. Coming into being itself necessarily entails an originator who acts, even if we suppose that nothing else came into being, that nothing else could come into being, and that there were no other circumstances in which coming into being was possible. For everyone’s innate nature recognizes as plainly impossible the notion that something could bring itself into being without an originator to bring it into being.

This knowledge is firmly rooted in everyone’s innate nature, even that of children. When a child finds that he has received a blow to the head, he says, “Who hit me? Who hit me?” and cries until he knows who hit him.

If he is told, “No one hit you,” or, “This blow happened by itself, without anyone causing it,” his mind will not accept that. To possess this innate knowledge with which he was created, he has no need to reason that the occurrence of this blow at this particular moment, rather than before or after, must have a determining agent. Indeed, many rational people find this difficult even to conceive, and explaining