The necessary upshot, then, would be the everlasting persistence of His perfect efficacy together with the entirety of its effect. Were that true, nothing new would ever arise in this world; the very appearance of fresh events proves that not all of His effects are concomitant with Him. Perfect efficacy that entails all effects is not established from pre-eternity; rather, effects issue from Him successively—He is Agent with respect to this occurrence and then to that. As noted earlier, if effects had to be perpetual, there would be no change at all in the universe.

Should you reply, “What is required is only the perpetual fact of acting in general,” we say: nothing in this obliges the pre-eternity of any part of the cosmos. For His being the Agent of a thing entails that the thing itself be preceded by non-existence, and His perpetual agency does not contradict that. Accordingly, the philosopher possesses no proof that anything in the world is eternal.

As for the theologian who argues, “Since an act must be preceded by non-existence, it follows that He began producing after previously not producing,” we ask: Do you require that every specific effect and every specific act be preceded by non-existence, or only that the genus of action be so? If you choose the first, there is no inconsistency in maintaining that each individual act and effected thing is preceded by non-existence while the genus of efficacy and effect endures forever. Thus the conclusion reached by rational proof in no way conflicts with what that very proof indicates.