And because His act of creation was made contingent upon the arrival of a particular, real, or predetermined moment, it necessarily follows—on every one of the above-mentioned formulations—that everything indispensable to His causal efficacy in bringing that event into being was already present from pre-eternity.

If we affirm that all that is required for this efficacy was indeed existent from eternity, then the effect must have been necessarily concomitant with it from eternity as well. For if the effect were not necessarily consequent upon it, its relation to the cause would have to be either impossible or merely possible. Were it impossible, the supposed cause would not, in fact, be a cause at all—contradicting our premise. If it were merely possible, so that the effect might or might not follow, let us posit that at one time the cause actually produces the effect and at another it does not. The distinction between the moment in which the cause brings forth the effect and the moment in which it does not must either depend on the addition of some further condition, or it must not. If it does depend on such an addition, then prior to that addition the cause was not complete in its causal efficacy, whereas we had assumed that it was; this is a contradiction. If it does not depend on any added condition, then a merely possible alternative has been preferred without any determining factor whatsoever—an admission that would shut the door to reasoning from the contingent to a determiner.

If, on the other hand, we maintain that not everything necessary for causal efficacy was present from eternity, then if that missing factor were to persist eternally it would never become causative at all, whereas we have posited that it does, in fact, become causative perpetually—again a contradiction. Should it fail to persist, we must inquire into the manner of its own origination, and an infinite regress ensues. That regress can be conceived in two ways: first, as occurring within a series of causes and effects whose entire aggregate comes into existence all at once