pre-eternity, since their existence in pre-eternity is impossible. Hence He cannot be a complete determiner for any of those alleged eternal motions. A motion that comes into being one instant after another cannot, under any circumstance, proceed from an eternal complete determiner.

Accordingly, if the Pre-eternal Being is said to entail motion—either because motion inheres in Him, as with the celestial sphere, or because a consequent motion necessarily accompanies Him, as they claim for the Intellect—then it is impossible for the necessitating cause to necessitate Him without also necessitating the concomitant motion, and it is equally impossible for Him to necessitate that concomitant motion. On either supposition, therefore, He would not be its necessitating cause. It follows that neither the world as a whole nor any part of it can be pre-eternal, and this is exactly what was to be proven.

This, then, is a noble proof for the origination of everything other than God, unrestrictedly. It rests upon sound premises that the philosophers and others themselves concede: whatever necessitates by its very essence must have its effect inseparably concomitant with it.

As for an agent who acts by choice, people hold three opinions: (1) that what He wills must accompany His will, (2) that such accompaniment is impossible, or (3) that both alternatives are admissible. Whichever view one adopts, everything other than God must still be originated. For if it is said that the intended object must accompany His will, then His will for any specific thing cannot be eternal, for that would entail the thing’s existence in pre-eternity; the argument then collapses into the very same against the necessitator by essence, whose existence in pre-eternity has already been shown to be impossible. Consequently, none of the objects of His will can be eternal. If, on the other hand, it is said that His act must necessarily be postponed, then the intended object comes to be originated; and if