They therefore contend that the celestial spheres necessarily entail the occurrence of temporal events, and that those events, in turn, coincide with the intellects that are inseparable from Him. Hence, they say, He has never ceased acting with respect to such events—in their wording, He has never ceased to be their cause or producer.

Yet an eternal cause that necessarily yields its effect cannot have an effect that is itself originated, or that entails originated things, or that accompanies anything originated; for that would require the originated to be eternal alongside the cause and produced by it, whereas what is originated can neither coexist with the eternal nor be its effect.

Nor can one claim an endless chain of events occurring successively under this assumption, for in that case the cause would not be a cause of any event from all eternity; rather, it would become the cause of each individual event only when that event comes to be. A complete cause, however, is one that necessitates its effect, so its very causality and influence would have to arise bit by bit, just as its effects arise bit by bit.

If an effect is never devoid of some temporal occurrence—thereby entailing and accompanying such occurrences—then it cannot exist except together with its concomitant. But the existence of that concomitant issuing from the eternal cause from pre-eternity is impossible; therefore, the existence of the thing that requires that concomitant to issue from the cause from pre-eternity is likewise impossible, whether the concomitant is taken to be the totality of events, a single event, or a succession of events occurring species by species.

On all three suppositions, then, such a thing cannot proceed from an eternal cause that produces by its very essence, for all of them are but its effects.