In the fresh reading proposed here of the still not satisfactorily interpreted passages in Metaphysics Ε2-3, Aristotle emerges as making a case against determinism based on a robust notion of the accident. Accidental beings are uncaused causes and have their rightful place in Aristotle's ontology. The resulting physical indeterminism is here used as a litmus test for the exegetical practice of the great Commentator, Averroes, whose self-proclaimed, and later proverbial, loyalty to Aristotle's text will be shown to give way to idiosyncratic interpretations at times. His explanations of Metaphysics Ε2-3 are sparse and no less obscure than Aristotle's text. It is only when read together with his commentaries on the Physics, to which he explicitly refers twice in his Long commentary on Metaphysics Ε2-3, that a surprising picture emerges. Averroes recycles the notion of the accident, now reconceptualised in cosmological terms, and – putting it to the opposite use of Aristotle's – weaves it into an original theory of motion that integrates both supra- and sublunar realms into a deterministic framework of uninterrupted causal chains, thus safeguarding the principle of Divine providence.

Il est bien difficile de situer notre traité dans le temps et l'espace, ou même de le rattacher à une école déterminée. Aucune allusion ne permet de se faire une idée de l'appartenance religieuse de son auteur. Bénédiction initiale et eulogie finale sont des rites obligé (§ 60). La référence au “Créateur béni soit-il” (§17) ou à la sagesse divine (§ 31) est présente chez tout le monde. Aucun penseur n'est cité par son nom propre.