of the celestial spheres, or the spheres themselves, or whatever (1) part of the world you please—necessarily entails temporal events. For, according to them, neither the souls nor the spheres can be devoid of temporal events; if they were, they would not be souls but intellects (2).

Accordingly, if the effect is not devoid of temporal events, its cause must likewise not be devoid of them. Otherwise, temporal events would arise within the effect without a cause, which is impossible. Temporal events must have a cause in conjunction with which they arise (3). If the cause of the souls and spheres contains nothing that would necessitate this, it cannot be their cause, since diverse temporal events cannot proceed from a simple cause that remains in one and the same state (4).

This is one of the arguments advanced by their leading figures (5), as well as by others who maintain that (6) volitional acts subsist in the Lord. They said: “The diversity and temporal origination found among effected things require that the cause of this derive from the agent; otherwise, temporal events would arise without anything bringing them about. Since every one of the [parts] (7) of the world necessarily entails temporal events and is fashioned, bringing it into existence without temporal events is impossible. It is likewise impossible to bring [temporal events] (8) into being successively while their locus—the effect—is itself eternal, because the eternal principle that necessitates”