the class of temporal events has existed perpetually, without beginning. For beginninglessness does not denote any determinate point; rather, no time can be posited without another time preceding it. The perpetuity of the class therefore does not entail that any particular thing is beginningless.

It was said that no particular thing can be beginningless because, if the object willed may accompany the will in beginninglessness, it must accompany it. This is because a will whose object may accompany it cannot have its object fail to accompany it (1) except due to a deficiency in power. Otherwise, when power is complete and a will whose object may accompany it is present, the object willed must occur, since the complete necessitating factor for the act exists. For if it did not necessarily occur (2), despite the object willed being possible, its subsequent occurrence would entail preferring one of two identical possibilities over the other without any preponderating factor. That is untenable on this supposition.

For this reason, those who maintain that the occurrence of any temporal event in beginninglessness is impossible also maintain that the occurrence of any will (3) in beginninglessness is impossible. They do not say that such a will is possible or that its object may accompany it.

People have objected to them, however, that if all times and temporal events stand in exactly the same relation to the beginningless will, then preferring one of two times—or whatever point is posited (4) as the time of origination—amounts to preference without a preponderating factor and to singling out one of two identical possibilities without anything to single it out.