Eighth Consideration:
This assertion rests on the supposed existence of the “intellects” and “souls” of which those philosophers speak—entities that, they claim, subsist in themselves, exist outside the sensible realm, cannot be pointed to, are neither inside the world nor outside it, are neither separate from it nor situated within it, are characterized by neither motion nor rest, can never be seen, are not bodies, and do not inhere in bodies. The majority of rational people recognize the absurdity of such a notion as self-evidently false.

It has therefore become clear that the replies offered by the two aforementioned groups are unsound. While answering these philosophers merely by counter-argument is valid, it does not actually dissolve the underlying difficulty.

A response that avoids simple opposition can be put forward in several ways. One of them is as follows:

If an infinite regress of effects were possible, the argument these philosophers advance for the eternity of any particular thing—whether the celestial sphere or anything else—would collapse, for in that case the thing could be contingent, produced by a preceding cause; and the same would hold for everything other than God. If, on the other hand, such a regress is impossible, then temporal events must have a first beginning, and anything in which events occur must itself be originated. This necessarily entails that the celestial spheres are originated, which is precisely what we seek to prove. Hence their argument fails on either horn of the dilemma.