necessitation, action, causal efficacy, and origination [must] be (1) actual when the necessitated and originated effect exists (2). Thus, He is not truly an agent except when the thing produced exists.

If it were supposed that He brought it about and necessitated it (3), and it came into existence (4) after having been nonexistent, it would follow that His action (5) and necessitation occurred while the necessitated thing produced was nonexistent. Yet when that thing is nonexistent, there can be neither necessitation nor action.

Given this, if that which necessitates the origination of temporal events is supposed to produce the second after the first without a state arising in Him by virtue of which He becomes the agent [of the second] (6), then the complete efficient cause would be nonexistent when the effect exists. This is impossible, for His state is the same whether the effect exists or not. Before it existed, it was impossible for Him to be its agent; it is therefore likewise impossible when it exists. Or it may be said: before its existence He was not its agent, and likewise when it exists.

For if it were deemed possible for the second temporal event to arise without a state arising in the agent by virtue of which (7) He became an agent, it would follow that all temporal events arise without a cause, and that the agent’s giving preponderance to one of the two alternatives of a contingent thing—indeed, to the existence of the contingent thing itself—occurs without a preponderating factor. For His state before, during, and after (8) is the same. Assigning that temporal event to one particular time would therefore be a specification without a specifier. If this were possible, every temporal event could arise without a cause—