And if it is alleged that multiplicity is found in the first emanated being, the discussion is the same as that which applies to the multiplicity said to issue from the first effect. Should that multiplicity be real and positive, it necessarily follows that more than one entity has proceeded from the absolutely simple One of whom they assert that only one can proceed. If, however, it is claimed to be a matter of privations, it still entails that diverse existent things have issued from a simple One characterized solely by negations. Thus their maxim, “From the One only one proceeds,” combined with the fact that heterogeneous entities do proceed from the Originator, forces one of two alternatives: either the unity they describe is nullified, or the claim that these diverse things emanate from Him—whether directly or by mediation—is nullified.

Even a single example such as the eighth celestial sphere, with its multitude of stars, suffices to expose the problem, for according to them there are no distinct causes above that sphere that could account for the abundance of stars it contains. The same difficulty appears with the Tenth Intellect in regard to the profusion of elements and other beings that lie beneath it.

A fourth argument runs as follows: If He were an eternal, fully sufficient cause, His effect would necessarily accompany Him, and everything other than Him is His effect. It would then follow either that no new occurrence ever arises in existence, or that occurrences happen without a producer—both conclusions are known by necessity to be false. If they reply that some events are delayed because they depend on a prior event, we answer that whatever is said of the second event must be said of the first. For one who is a cause acting by His very essence cannot have anything withheld from Him, nor can His causal efficacy be contingent on the occurrence of another event—unless some other agent intervenes. They make a similar claim about the Agent Intellect, asserting that its effusion is universal yet conditional upon the preparedness of recipients; but such dependency is impossible for One from whom everything proceeds and whose creative act depends on nothing outside His own essence, for in that case nothing could ever be postponed from Him at all.