, if it indicates the existence of a necessary existent, does not thereby rule out all existence being necessary.

If he says, “I shall subsequently demonstrate that it includes something temporally originated,” the reply is:

Once that is demonstrated, it is established that existence includes something beginningless, and temporally originated things constitute the proof of the beginningless existent.

This is a sound method. It demonstrates the existence of a beginningless existent, not the existence of a necessary existent with a beginningless effect.

But existence itself points to it in every case. It is then said:

Not all existence is necessary and beginningless, for we witness things coming into existence. What is temporally originated is not beginningless, and neither its existence nor its nonexistence is necessary. Nor is its existence impossible, such that its nonexistence would be necessary, for it existed at one time and was nonexistent at another.

It is thus known that both its existence and its nonexistence are possible. Whatever is of this kind must have a beginningless, eternal agent whose nonexistence is impossible. Thus, the existence of the beginningless, eternal existent is established both from existence itself and from the existence of temporally originated things. The existence of temporally originated things also establishes that not every existent is beginningless or necessary. Rather, this method establishes the division of existence into the beginningless and necessary, and the temporally originated and contingent. This is the method of temporal origination and of contingency that does not contradict temporal origination but is inseparable from it. As for the contingency they have invented, neither can it itself be established, nor can anything be established by it.

As for identifying the beginningless, necessary existent and establishing that the heavens are temporally originated, there are methods