Kalam

[Belacqua]

Kalam is about a temporal chain of causation. The Thomist ways are about essential chains. 

"First efficient cause" and "ultimate effect" and "intermediate efficient causes" and "following in order"  all of which appear in the argument above implies a temporal chain structure.

It sounds that way to modern ears, because we tend to think of causal chains as temporal things. Aquinas is concerned with what is essentially prior. His vocabulary is more Aristotelian, so it sounds unfamiliar to modern people.

Aquinas is writing about a series per se, not per accidens. 

If a thing is "prior" in this sense, it is necessary for it to exist in order for the following things in the chain to exist, simultaneously. If the essentially prior object disappeared, so would all the following things. 

This is the difference between all of Aquinas' arguments and Kalam. Kalam posits a beginning point in time which sets in motion a series per accidens. This does not depend on the continued existence of the First Cause for the rest of the chain to continue existing. It is compatible with Deism, where Aquinas' First Cause is not.