on a writer, nor striking on someone who strikes. All such cases are impossible: something coming into existence without an originator is as impossible as writing without a writer. If something could come into existence without an originator, it could come into existence without any act of origination, and that is impossible.”

Yet these people say that what comes into existence is identical to the act of bringing it into existence. Their position therefore actually entails something coming into existence without any act of origination, although here they have treated the denial of this as an established premise supporting their argument.

They said:
“Moreover, we observe that some events precede others, while others occur later. Were there no one who caused the earlier events to precede and the later events to follow, those that preceded would have had no greater claim to being earlier than later, nor those that followed to being later than earlier. This indicates that they have an originator who determines their order, causing some to precede and others to follow.

That determining factor must then be the originated things themselves, an attribute within the originated thing, the thing itself without an attribute within it, or an agent who made it so. It cannot be due to the thing itself, because its very self is its existence, and a thing cannot bring itself into existence. Nor can it be due to that attribute, because the attribute must exist: what is nonexistent has no effect in this regard. If it exists, it must be either eternal or originated. It cannot be eternal, for that would require the originated body to be eternal, which is false.

If it is originated, it must occur either earlier or later. If it does so, although it could fail to precede owing to the prior existence of its necessitating cause, it can only be so because of another attribute, and that attribute because of yet another, without end.