a complete necessitating cause whose effect coexisted with Him—as they claim—then nothing in the universe would be temporally originated. Such a temporally originated thing cannot arise from a complete eternal cause whose effect coexists with it, for a particular temporally originated thing cannot be eternal.

It makes no difference whether it is said to have arisen through an intermediary or without one (1)—as they claim that the celestial sphere was generated from Him through the intermediary of one intellect, two intellects, or by some other account they give. Any doctrine entailing that something (2) in the universe is eternal and an inseparable concomitant of Allah’s essence is false. This would entail that the Creator necessarily produces by virtue of His essence, such that what He necessarily produces coexists with Him (3); otherwise, He would not be accompanied by that thing. If He necessarily produced by virtue of His essence, nothing entailed or necessitated by Him could lag behind Him. It would therefore follow that nothing in the universe could be temporally originated.

[The Invalidity of the Claim That the Creator Necessarily Produces the Celestial Sphere by Virtue of His Essence]

If it were said that He necessarily produces the celestial sphere by virtue of His essence, while producing the sphere’s successive motions one after another, this would be false on several grounds.

The first is as follows:

If the motion of the celestial sphere is its inseparable concomitant—as they maintain—it would be impossible to bring the sphere into existence without that concomitant. It is also impossible for Him, by virtue of His essence, to be a complete cause that necessarily produces the motion, because motion comes into existence successively, whereas no part of the effect of a (* complete cause that necessitates its effect [in eternity] (4) can lag behind that cause. Thus, motion cannot be an effect