Another is an infinite regress that amounts to circular reasoning, as when one says: “No event at all can occur until an event occurs.” This too is invalid by the necessary judgment of reason and the consensus of rational people.

Another is an infinite regress of successive effects and of the completion of causal efficacy with respect to a particular thing, as when one says: “This cannot occur until something occurs before it, and this cannot occur without something occurring after it,” and so on. There is a well-known dispute over this among Muslims and other groups. Some, both Muslims and others, allow it in the future but not in the past.

Once these types are understood, they say: “If the cause was not fully effective from eternity, nothing could arise from it until an event occurred that made it fully effective, since the same reasoning applies to that event as to any other.” Their argument thus amounts to saying that nothing can occur until something occurs. This is invalid according to clear reason and the consensus of rational people.

But if they seek to establish through this argument that the cause has always been producing one thing after another, this contradicts their position and is an argument against them. If, however, they mean that it was a fully effective cause from eternity, without its causal efficacy arising anew, it follows that nothing could come into being through it after previously not existing. This would entail that there could not come into being in the world