or simultaneous.”

If the former is maintained, he refuted it with three arguments, then rejected those arguments and said:

“The more plausible approach here is to say: If the causes and effects were successive, each would necessarily have come into existence. In that case, either some of them existed in eternity past, or none of them existed in eternity past. The first possibility is impossible, because what is eternal is not preceded by nonexistence, whereas what comes into existence is preceded by nonexistence. If the second possibility holds, then the aggregate of causes and effects is preceded by nonexistence, since necessarily none of them existed in eternity past. It follows that they have a beginning and an end, and whatever has a beginning and an end depends on something else preceding it. As for the case in which the posited causes and effects exist simultaneously—”

He then presented the argument as we have quoted it from him. These divisions and lengthy elaborations are unnecessary and are invalid in themselves. n He thus added something dispensable to the argument; making the argument depend on it would invalidate it, if the refutation rested solely on what he had stated.

This frequently occurs in the discourse of those who engage in blameworthy speculative theology: they elaborate at length on definitions