to them that it arises from an eternal will.

To posit that the will itself is the act relating to the effect is unintelligible. It is like positing an effect without an agent, for the act is distinct from the agent, the effect, and the will. The will is a condition of the act, not the act itself.

Moreover, this eternal will must relate to the nonexistence of that which comes into existence for an infinite duration, if the latter is nonexistent for an infinite duration. Thus, it can relate to the willed object at the time when it requires that object to be brought into existence only after an infinite duration has elapsed. Yet what is infinite cannot elapse. Consequently, either the willed object must never become actual, or an infinite duration must elapse—which is impossible.

This is precisely the proof on which the speculative theologians relied to establish that the revolutions of the celestial sphere had a beginning.

Furthermore, a will that precedes the willed object and relates to it at one particular time rather than another must acquire, at the time of bringing that object into existence, a resolve to do so that was not present before that time. For if, at the time of the act, there is nothing more in the willing agent than there was when the will required the act not to occur, there would be no reason for that act to proceed from the agent at that time rather than not to occur.

Moreover, how can a time be specified for something that comes into existence without its being preceded by a past span of time with a definite boundary? This is in addition to all the contentious argumentation and intractable doubts involved in these matters, from which