According to maimonides, aristotle believed that the world is eternal and that it has always existed in the form in which it now exists. As Davidson remarks, the latter claim is important because Maimonides' rendering of the Platonic view is that although the material component of the world is eternal, its form or structure was imposed by God during creation. This is why the Platonic view leaves room for divine volition. The Aristotelian view does not because it denies both creation ex nihilo and the creation of the cosmos de novo. In the words of Maimonides (GP 2.12, p. 284): “He [Aristotle] thinks that this being as a whole, such as it is, has never ceased to be and will never do so; that the permanent thing not subject to generation and passing-away, namely the heaven, likewise does not cease to be; that time and motion are perpetual and everlasting and not subject to generation and passing-away; and also that the thing subject to generation and passing-away, namely, that which is beneath the sphere of the moon, does not cease to be.” As such, the Aristotelian position understands creation as eternal dependence on God and constitutes the extreme opposite of the Mosaic.

The crux of this position is a principle articulated throughout the Aristotelian corpus: anything that is eternal is necessary. If the present form of the world always was and always will be, it is necessary and no other form is possible.