by means of several premises:

First, whatever is contingent requires a determining factor that gives one of its two possible states precedence over the other. Second, this determining factor can only be a willing agent. Third, whatever exists through will has a beginning.

He then explained that what is contingent proceeds from will—that is, from a willing agent—since every act proceeds either from nature or from will.

Nature, however, does not produce one of two equivalent possibilities to the exclusion of its counterpart. For example, scammony does not draw the yellow bile from the right side of the body to the exclusion of that on the left.

Will, by contrast, singles out one thing rather than its equivalent.

He then added to these premises that the world’s being in the location in which it was created, within the space in which it was created—by which he means the void—is equivalent to its being in another location within that void. From this he concluded that the world was created through will.