Moreover, once it is conceded that He was not a fully sufficient cause for events from pre-eternity, then if His acting after previously not acting were to hinge on something else, the very Originator of the universe would find Himself in need of another in order to originate. Should that other be a Necessary Being, one would have to affirm two necessary agents—an impossibility by unanimous agreement, and one that still fails to establish the world’s eternity. Now, if each of the two were independently operative, each would have to be the creator of the whole: this one creating the entire cosmos and that one creating the entire cosmos—an obvious union of contraries. If, on the other hand, neither were independently operative, each would rely on and require the other, so that its being an agent endowed with power would be conditional on the other. This entails that the first is not an acting, capable agent except through the second, and the second is not an acting, capable agent except through the first—an immediate, antecedent circularity. In that case, neither of them would be an agent capable of acting. All of this is universally acknowledged and has been set out in detail elsewhere, so there is no need to prolong the discussion here.

If that other entity were merely contingent, it would be one of His own effects and artifacts; His action would then be conditioned by something that itself belongs among His effects and artifacts. The argument concerning His action in relation to that contingent being is the same as for anything else: His acting must not depend on anything external to Himself. Should someone claim that His acting—after He had not acted—does not depend on another, it would entail preference without a preferrer and occurrence without a cause, a notion they themselves deem impossible. Even were it hypothetically allowed, it would nonetheless admit the possibility of events arising at that point.