they could not be (1) willed by a beginningless will. For if that will necessarily entailed its object, the particular temporal event would have to exist from all eternity. But if its object came after it, that will would itself suffice to bring about the subsequent objects of will; there would then be nothing requiring the existence of those successive wills, and so they would not [come into being] (2), since a temporal event comes into being only when its complete cause exists.

If the agent is assumed to will one thing after another and to act successively, this must be among the necessary concomitants of his essence. His essence would therefore (3) entail that his acts come into being successively, and his effects would (4), with even greater reason [and all the more so] (5), come into being successively.

That being so, his essence would entail the temporal origination of each of these acts and effects. If his essence entails this, it cannot at the same time entail the beginninglessness of an act and an effect together with the will pertaining to them, which necessarily entails them. His essence would then entail two contradictory things: its entailing (6) the temporal origination of the individual instances of act and effect (7), together with the beginninglessness of their kind, is incompatible (8) with its entailing the beginninglessness (9) of the particular act and effect themselves (10).