Now, if the celestial sphere were itself necessary and had no maker, this would oblige us to say that something necessary in itself still stands in need of a cause to set it in motion—particularly since they admit that it can subsist only through the First Mover. Yet whatever depends on another is not necessary in itself, for the self-necessary must be altogether free from need. By declaring the sphere both necessary in itself and dependent on another, they have combined two opposites. Once it is dependent, it is a created, governed entity, and we are back to the first category of contingent beings.

Moreover, were it the Necessary Existent, one would have to allow that the Necessary Existent can undergo motion by choice. If you concede that much, then ascribe voluntary motion to the First and dispense with the rest of the argument.

Further, this would mean that the Necessary Existent is a spatial body in which temporal events occur—and in that case nothing would prevent the First from being the same.

You have also said: “From the static nothing non-static follows.” The First, you claim, is static, whereas the sphere’s motion, its will, and its apprehensions are non-static; therefore they cannot proceed from the First, and the First would not be a cause in any way.

This is made clearer by noting that the sphere’s motion—whether voluntary or involuntary—requires two causes: an efficient cause and a final cause, just like every other motion. Yet you have provided it with neither, for the end you propose cannot possibly be the aim of an intelligent being that has been revolving from eternity past to eternity future.

Again, if every contingent event needs a contingent cause, that cause must accompany the effect: it may neither precede it while the effect is absent, nor lag behind it.