[Fourth point]

It may be said:

The occurrence of temporal events through an eternal cause, without anything new arising, is either possible or impossible.

If it is possible, the argument’s second premise is invalid.

If it is impossible, something must come into being that completes the causal efficacy responsible for these events. Otherwise, they would have come into being through the eternal cause without anything new arising, whereas this is assumed to be impossible.

The same reasoning concerning the coming into being of its effect applies to the coming into being of that completion. An infinite regress of effects necessarily follows, invalidating the claim that infinite regress is absolutely impossible.

If this is what the premise means, as intended by some who formulate this argument, then it is untenable.

But if what is meant is what ought to be meant—an infinite regress in the completion of causal efficacy as such—then its impossibility entails only His perpetually being an agent, not His perpetually producing any particular thing. This does not help their position; rather, it undermines it. Thus, one premise is invalid on the assumption of one of two contradictory alternatives, and the other is invalid on the assumption of the opposite alternative.

One of these two alternatives must hold, so one of the premises must certainly be invalid.

The argument is therefore invalid.

[Fifth point]

We say:

You state: “Once the two premises have been established, the eternity of the Creator, exalted is He, entails the eternity of His acts.” Do you mean the eternity of all His acts, of some particular act of His, or of His acts as a kind?

The first is certainly false, since it contradicts what we observe.

As for the second, the argument provides no evidence for it, since it does not establish the eternity of any particular thing, whether an act or an effect.