of temporally originated things and an agent for things made, and that an effect’s being (1) [concurrent with its agent—having always been and forever remaining with it—is impossible according to the innate constitution of rational minds. This is one of the arguments used against these people, as has been explained fully elsewhere. For once the falsity of their fellows’ position has been demonstrated to them, and it has become clear that an agent must possess certain states by virtue of which it becomes an agent, it is also impossible for its particular effect] (2) to be concurrent with it from eternity (3) and forever. For this would strip it of its status as that agent’s effect.

Sixth: Both groups alike should be told: The basis of your position is recourse to existence, while philosophy is knowledge of existence as it truly is. True philosophy consists of the sciences concerning existent things, through which existence is known. Yet, for the most part, you establish [nothing] (4) except through inference—either by a universal syllogism or by analogy. Have you ever known an agent whose effect necessarily accompanies it or is simultaneous with it (5) in time, without coming into being gradually, whether that agent acts by will or by nature?

Have you ever known an agent that has always (6) necessitated its effect, while its effect has always been causally dependent upon it? This is something that neither you nor anyone else can conceive. How, then, can you establish by rational argument (7) something that cannot even be conceived as a determinate reality, let alone as a universal (8)? Yet the universal is derivative