And it is known that for the essential nature of the general kind of temporal origination, the general kind (1) of temporal events, the general kind of action, the general kind of bringing things into being, or any similar formulation, to change from impossibility to possibility means that it became possible and admissible after having been impossible, without any newly arising cause (2). This is plainly impossible according to reason. It also constitutes a change in the general kind from intrinsic impossibility to intrinsic possibility, for according to them, the very nature of the general kind of temporal events becomes possible after having been impossible.

This transition is not confined to any determinate time, for there is no time one might posit without possibility already being established before it. (3 It follows that this transition has always existed 3)(3). It therefore follows that what is impossible has always been possible. This is even more manifestly impossible than our statement that a temporal event has always been possible. Thus, what follows for them from the position they fled [to is even more impossible than what followed for them from the position they fled] (4) from. For it is conceivable that a temporal event should be possible (5), and it is conceivable that this possibility has always existed. But for what is impossible to be possible is itself impossible—so what if it is said, “The possibility of this impossibility has always existed!”

Furthermore, the condition they mentioned—namely, that the general kind of action or the general kind of temporal events, on condition (6) that they are preceded by nonexistence, has always been possible—also entails combining two contradictories. For the fact that this (7) has always been possible entails that its possibility has no beginning,