Let us return to the point where we began. Although its grammatical structure is unclear, the first sentence of Genesis describes the world in a way that emphasizes its contingency. If God confers existence on things, their existence is not necessary. From a philosophic perspective, this means that existence cannot be taken for granted. Prior to any question about the structure of the world is the question of its origin: why is there a world at all?

The three answers Maimonides considers are as follows: (1) God created it by an act of will, (2) God imposed order on preexistent matter, and (3) God is the source of eternal emanation. All agree that matter is generated; the question is how. The theories of Plato and Aristotle assert the eternality of matter and seek to explain its generation by a causal process. The theory of Moses asserts that matter comes to be along with everything else and that the manner in which it comes to be is not a causal process as we normally understand it. For Maimonides, causality is a horizontal relation that implies resemblance. Because God does not resemble the world in any respect, a causal relation between them is ruled out. This is why Maimonides turns to will. His only other option was to turn to Platonic causation and adopt some form of the “prior to F, therefore not F” principle, but doing so would still raise questions of purpose and particularity.