If one were to claim that an act must be preceded by non-existence, this would oblige him to say that He became a producer only after previously not producing. Hence the philosopher infers the state of the effect from the state of the Cause, while the theologian infers the state of the Cause from the state of the effect. This is the great battlefield—the gravest of contentions—at this point.

I say: the premise that concerns perfection and deficiency is nobler than the premise that concerns necessity and contingency, as has been expounded elsewhere. What matters here is that one might say: had both the theologian and the philosopher been granted full guidance, they would have realized that what sound reason establishes accords with what the Messengers have reported and with the other rational demonstration; for the proofs of reason neither contradict one another nor contradict what the Messengers have conveyed.

Accordingly, the philosopher may be asked: When you say that the permanence of His Essence entails the permanence of His causal efficacy, do you mean efficacy with respect to a particular entity—such as the celestial spheres or something else? Do you likewise mean that a specific effect—those spheres or the like—must itself be permanent? Or do you intend the permanence of His efficacy toward everything? Or is it only the abstract permanence of causation and effect that you have in mind?

If you intend the first, your assertion is flawed for several reasons, foremost among them being that this argument requires only the perpetual existence of influence in general and an effect in general; it does not require perpetual influence upon any specific effect.

On this understanding, when it is said that God has never ceased to be described by attributes