have a beginning, for if the causes were successive and temporally originated, and temporally originated events had a beginning, it would follow that the temporally originated event had a beginning. At most, this amounts to establishing that the world is temporally originated.

Yet although he and others like him argue that the world is temporally originated, they did not say, “Whatever is temporally originated must have an originator,” as the majority maintain. Nor did they establish this by arguing that temporal origination occurs at one time rather than another and therefore requires something to determine it, as many theologians have done. Nor did they even argue that a contingent thing requires something to favor its existence. Rather, they said, “Whatever is temporally originated is contingent, and neither of a contingent thing’s two possibilities can prevail over the other without a determining factor.” They then raised the possibility of an infinite regress of causes and answered that objection.

If their answer to that objection can be completed only by establishing that the causes are temporally originated, then, likewise, the most they have established is that a contingent thing requires a temporally originated cause.

If they then say, “Whatever is temporally originated must have an originator,” they have spoken the truth. But they have prolonged the argument by introducing distinctions that serve no purpose and actually weaken the proof, although they could have dispensed with them from the outset.

If they do not say, “Whatever is temporally originated must have an originator,” their argument is of no use. For the mere temporal origination of the cause, unless it entails the existence of an originator, does not establish the Necessary Existent.