Among the answers we give are the following:

1. To state that a complete efficient cause necessarily entails and accompanies its effect, and that the effect, in turn, necessarily entails and accompanies the complete cause; to add that a complete determinant necessarily entails the preponderance, and that preponderance is impossible without such a determinant—this is a universal principle that allows neither exception nor qualification. It is on a par with the axioms, “Every originated thing must have an originator,” “Every newly introduced specification requires a specifier,” and “A contingent being’s existence cannot outweigh its non-existence except through a determinant.” These are categorical propositions that never fail, whether the originator, specifier, and determinant are assumed to be eternal or created.

2. The same reasoning that shows an originated thing cannot be preferred without a complete determinant shows the same for the eternal. For example: either the object willed must necessarily accompany the will, or it need not. If accompaniment is necessary, then, since the will is eternal, its object would likewise have to be eternal—contradicting their claim. If accompaniment is not necessary, then it is either impossible or possible. Were it impossible, the object willed could never come into existence despite the presence of the will, which is false, for they themselves hold that the divine will endures until its object appears.

Moreover, if the accompaniment is impossible and never becomes possible, the impossibility would persist forever, and nothing would come to be. But if it later becomes possible, while nothing new has arisen in the meantime, the object would shift from impossibility to possibility without any cause, so that impossibility would turn into possibility for no reason at all—an absurdity that is self-evidently false.