He said:

“Our reply is this: The force of the objection would be unavoidable were it not for the operation of something whose very nature is either to come into being without abiding, or to abide only by way of perpetual origination and renewal. Because of that, the causes that bring things into existence and the causes that preserve them ultimately terminate in other causes at later moments—causes that either contradict the former ones or add to them a fresh effect—without those moments coinciding. Rather, each cause and its effect remain in place until they are joined to the next; only on that account does the objection fail to hold.”

He continued:

“And that ‘something’ is motion—specifically spatial motion, and most particularly circular motion.”

I say: From this the point becomes clear, for the objection is compelling and admits no escape, while the answer he has offered is utterly unsound. The objector maintained that the persistence of what is originated requires an everlasting cause, as has been explained. Now, if that primordial cause were itself everlasting, whatever it brought forth would have to be everlasting alongside it and thus not originated. But if its very becoming a cause is itself an event, then that event too is originated, and the causal efficacy of that event will in turn need a second originated cause; the persistence of that second cause will require a third originated cause—and so on ad infinitum.