On this supposition, then, its being uncreated does not entail its being eternal. The aim is only to demonstrate that He did not create it within Himself, whether one holds that temporal occurrences subsist in Him or that they do not. This is a better approach, for it establishes the argument without committing to this view.

Thus it may be said:

Either temporal occurrences subsist in Him or they do not. If they do not, He cannot create it within Himself, because it would then come into being, and temporal occurrences would therefore subsist in Him. If temporal occurrences do subsist in Him, then they occur through His power and will, and they cannot all be created, because whatever is created must have an act of creation, and the act of creation is itself among these temporal occurrences. If the act of creation were itself created through an act of creation, it would follow that every act of creation was created. Something created would then come into being without an act of creation, even though it has already been stated that whatever is created must have an act of creation.

Since whatever subsists in His essence need not be created, if He were to bring it into being within His essence, it would not necessarily be created. Indeed, it could not be created, because a created thing is one whose act of creation subsists in the Lord’s essence and is distinct from the created thing. When He speaks it by His will and power, the term “speech” encompasses both His act of speaking it and the letters themselves. That act of speaking occurs through His power and will, not through an act of creation. For the act of creation likewise occurs through His power and will, and He creates things through His speech. It is therefore impossible for His speech to have an act of creation closer to Him than His speech itself.

It has also been said that His creation of things is His very utterance of “Be.” This, then, would be the act of creation. An act of creation does not occur through another act of creation; rather, the created thing comes into being through the act of creation. Some things He creates through an act that He also performs while speaking.

It has thus become clear, on every supposition, that if He brings His speech into being within His essence, it is not created, without this entailing that temporal occurrences do not subsist in Him.