the eating takes place, a degree of satiety is attained. [The effect occurs only after the cause has occurred, not simultaneously with it] (1).

This is the view of the great majority of rational thinkers—including theologians, jurists, philosophers, and others—who acknowledge that the effect occurs immediately after the cause. Accordingly, the leading jurists [and the majority of them] (2) held that if a man says, “When my father dies, you are free,” or, “You are divorced,” [or makes some other declaration] (3), the effect occurs only after the death, not simultaneously with it. Some later scholars adopted an anomalous view, however, supposing that the consequence occurs simultaneously with the cause. They said that this is like a cause and its effect, and that the effect occurs at the same time as its cause.

The term “cause” is equivocal: it may mean that which brings something into existence, or it may mean that which entails something else. While co-occurrence may be conceded in the latter sense (4), it is not conceded in the former (5). Nothing is known to bring something else into existence while being simultaneous with it in every respect. [Rather] (6), it must precede it in time, and the latter’s existence must come about after nonexistence. This is why the philosophers counted nonexistence among the principles, as we have previously mentioned in citing their statements.

Another example they give is that sound occurs simultaneously with motion, as when a ringing sound accompanies [a strike] (7). They claim that the effect here is simultaneous with the cause, but this too is inadmissible, for the existence of the motion that is—