something that comes into existence from an eternal agent except through an activity whose individual instances come into existence while its kind is perpetual; yet they do not concede this.

He says:

Moreover, if the agent sometimes acts and sometimes does not, there must be a cause that disposes it to one of these two states rather than the other. Let us then ask the same question about that cause, and about the cause of that cause; the process will continue without end.

He says:

The speculative theologians’ answer—that the act which comes into existence proceeds from an eternal will—neither delivers nor extricates them from this difficulty. For will is distinct from the act that brings something into existence anew, whether we suppose the will to be eternal or to come into existence, and whether it precedes the act or accompanies it.

Whatever the case, they must admit one of three possibilities with respect to the eternal agent: either a will that comes into existence and an act that comes into existence; an act that comes into existence and an eternal will; or an eternal act and an eternal will.

Something that comes into existence cannot proceed directly from an eternal act, without an intermediary, if we concede