These thinkers maintain that the Necessary Being in and of Himself is simple, possessing neither any positive attribute nor any act that subsists in Him. They further claim that He is a complete cause that necessarily entails its effect. The unavoidable consequence of their position is that nothing can issue from Him except one single, simple, eternal entity—and the same would have to be true of whatever proceeds from that first emanation. Once, however, the undeniable existence of manifold, diverse, contingent beings became evident, their doctrine was shown to be self-contradictory. Their more discerning representatives openly concede this, as has been elaborated elsewhere.

The foregoing discussion yields several conclusions that demonstrate the impossibility of contingent events arising from a complete cause: their assertion that such events come forth from a complete cause is false in every respect. It shows, moreover, that the originator of events must be an agent in whom actions inhere. Just as this refutes their argument for the world’s pre-eternity, it also points—from yet another angle—to the world’s temporal origination.

The argument runs thus: the entire universe—encompassing bodies and accidents, intellects and souls (assuming that souls exist apart from bodies and accidents); indeed, everything other than God, exalted be He—is either devoid of successive events, like a body at rest, or it contains them, like a body in motion. On either account, its pre-eternity is impossible. For if any part of the universe were eternal, it would, by universal rational agreement and rigorous proof, have to issue from an agent that necessitates its effect by its very essence—an eternal, complete cause. If that entity were eternal while its agent acted without power and will, the agent would be a self-necessitating cause; and if its agent acted by power and will, yet an agent endowed with power and choice is not accompanied by any of his effects, then it is impossible for his effect to coexist with him.