Likewise, it may be said: an existent being is either created or uncreated. Anything created must have an uncreated Creator; thus, on either supposition, the existence of an uncreated being is established.

That existent being, then—the one necessarily existent in itself, [beginningless] (1), self-sufficient in itself, the Self-Subsisting Creator who is not created—cannot depend upon anything else in any respect whatsoever. For if it depended upon its own effect, while its effect depended upon it, circularity among causal agents would necessarily result. If it depended upon another, and that other in turn depended upon another, an infinite regress among causal agents would necessarily result. The falsity of both is known through plain reason and the agreement of all rational people.

If it is impossible (2) for it to be an agent [of itself, then it is impossible for it to be the agent of an agent] (3) in itself—with even greater reason. Whether one uses (4) the term “agent,” “maker” (5), “creator,” “cause,” “principle,” or “causal agent,” the proof remains valid with all these expressions.

Likewise, it is impossible to posit effects among which there is no agent that is not itself an effect. This amounts to positing effects (* among which there is no causal agent, and contingent beings among which there is no being necessary in itself; for every one of these *) (6) is contingent and dependent. Their aggregate depends upon every one of its individual members (7), and therefore it is