that is, a produced thing that is an eternal effect of that which necessitates by virtue of its essence—was never maintained (1) by any of them. Rather, they unanimously agree that every produced thing must be originated.

What he and others like him asserted, in agreement with Ibn Sīnā—that a contingent entity capable of either existence or nonexistence may be eternal and beginningless—is false in the judgment of the overwhelming majority of rational people, ancient and later alike.

This is so even according to Aristotle and his followers, both ancient and later, for they agree with all other rational people that every contingent entity capable of either existence or nonexistence must be originated, coming into being after not having existed. When Aristotle maintained that the celestial sphere was eternal, he did not thereby regard it as contingent, such that it could either exist or not exist.

The point is that knowing that something lies within an agent’s power and is willed entails knowing that it is originated. Indeed, knowing that it is produced entails knowing that it is originated, for action, creation, bringing into being, making, and the like cannot be conceived without also conceiving of the thing produced as having been originated.

Furthermore, to combine a thing’s being produced with its being eternal and beginningless, temporally concomitant with its agent (2), is to combine two contradictories. Nor can there ever conceivably exist—