they say that above it there is a newly arising cause through which its causal efficacy becomes complete—as maintained by those among them who allow events to occur within the eternal cause—then, on their view, the world could likewise come into being. On either view, therefore, their argument fails.
The second aspect is to use this argument to establish that the world came into being. One may argue as follows: Were the world eternal, it would necessarily have a complete necessitating cause, with that cause entailing its eternity. Its being eternal without a necessitating cause would entail an impossibility. For if its cause were not complete and necessitating, the world could either exist or not exist; and that whose existence is contingent cannot exist except through a complete necessitating cause. Nothing necessitated or entailed by a complete necessitating cause can fail to accompany it.
Thus, if it is a complete necessitating cause of all events, those events must be eternal, contrary to what is observed. If it is not a complete necessitating cause of them, something must complete their necessitating cause. If that thing is eternal, the events must be eternal, because the eternity of that which entails something requires the eternity of what it entails. If, however, that thing came into being, it would itself be one of the events. There must therefore be something outside the totality of events through which its necessitating cause becomes complete, since the discussion concerns all events.
Whatever completes the necessitating cause and is not itself an event can only be eternal. Yet if it were eternal, the events would necessarily be eternal. Thus, the eternity of the world entails the eternity of events, which is impossible; hence the eternity of the world is impossible. The eternity of the world therefore entails its own non-eternity, and anything whose affirmation entails its own negation cannot be affirmed.
Know that, just as evidence is drawn from the events within the world, evidence is also drawn