effect produced by a single agent be one in which another has shared with him. Wherever there is shared agency, there is no single effect belonging to one agent alone, for sole agency is incompatible with partnership. The effects produced by created beings necessarily involve shared agency, but neither partner performs the very same action as the other. The hand does not do what the eye does, nor does the brain do what the heart does, although each depends on something else in performing its action.

Likewise, if a ship has two captains, a village two chiefs, or a city two kings, the action of one cannot be the very same action as that of the other. Rather, each does something distinct, and what either does is not done by the other.

This is why this man said:

“No single action proceeds from two agents of the same kind.”

As for his phrase “of the same kind,” unless it serves as further clarification, it is unnecessary. A single action cannot proceed from two agents, whether their actions are of one kind or of two different kinds. Indeed, the impossibility is even more evident in the latter case.

As for his statement:

“Whenever two actions of the same kind converge upon a single subject, that subject necessarily suffers corruption, or the agent is obstructed.”

Since a single action proceeds only from a single agent, what should really be said is:

“Rather, the action is impossible under these circumstances.”

It cannot occur in the first place for one then to ask whether the subject suffers corruption or not.

But he supposed—as some speculative theologians have supposed—that ‘god’ means ‘lord,’ and that the verse, in indicating that there cannot be two gods, merely indicated that there cannot be two lords. This is made evident by positing the impossibility of an action proceeding from two lords.