eternal, as various groups of Muslims maintain—as will be explained—and as do those among the philosophers who affirm the eternity of the world. The fundamental premise of their position is that the Originator of the world is a complete cause that necessarily entails its effect, such that its effect cannot come after it.

Their strongest argument is as follows:

“If everything required for Him to act existed from eternity, then the effect must also have existed from eternity, because the effect of a complete cause cannot come after it. If it did, not all the conditions for the act would have existed from eternity. By a complete cause, we mean nothing other than that which necessarily entails its effect. Thus, if the effect is assumed not to accompany it, the cause would not be complete.

“If, however, the complete cause—that is, everything required for the act, constituting the fully sufficient cause of its existence and comprising all the conditions whose existence necessarily entails the existence of the act—did not exist in its entirety from eternity, then, if the effect subsequently came into existence, a new cause must have arisen. Otherwise, one of the two alternatives for a contingent thing would have been favored without a determining factor. If there is a newly arisen cause, the same argument applies to its coming into existence as applies to the first temporal occurrence, and an infinite regress necessarily follows.”

They say: “Denying the existence of a complete cause that necessarily entails its effect therefore entails either an infinite regress or a preference without a determining factor.”

Most of these philosophers also affirm a final cause for the act, identifying it with the efficient cause itself. Yet they contradict themselves: they affirm a final cause for Him and a final cause for His act, while also saying that He has no will, but rather produces effects by the necessity of His essence, not as an agent acting by choice. Their position is false on many grounds.