cannot possibly pass away one event after another; for when events pass away, their passing away indicates their finitude.”

He is told:
“Their passing away indicates that they are finite at their final end.”

Ending and passing away here mean the same thing. It is as though the speaker had said: “If they have ended, they have ended; and if they have passed away, they have passed away.”

As for the claim that their passing away and ending at their final end indicates that they had a beginning that came into being after not existing, nothing about their ending indicates that their beginning came into being. Indeed, this is precisely the point at issue. Ending here does not invariably mean their complete cessation, such that none of them exists. Rather, what is meant is the ending of those that have passed. For something that ceases altogether, so that its kind no longer exists, may be said to have a beginning. Had it been beginningless in kind, it would not return, for whatever must be beginningless cannot cease to exist, whether it is an individual or a kind.

But if ending means the ending of what has passed, while the kind continues into the future, nothing about this ending entails that its beginning is bounded.

It is well known that if the intellect supposes successive events that have always occurred and will always continue to occur, it knows that each one has passed away, as have those preceding it, even while supposing the perpetuity of this kind. Likewise, it knows that each event has a beginning, while supposing that the events collectively have no beginning. It thus follows that this supposition conflicts with the passing away of what has passed away, but not with the coming into being of what has come into being. If these two things are not incompatible, establishing one does not prove the absence of the other. Thus, what they have mentioned does not conflict with the possibility of events continually coming into being.