We also say: If you describe the Creator (1)—exalted and transcendent—as occupying a spatial location, and every spatially located thing is a body, a corporeal substance (2), while reason does not allow bodies to be devoid of the modes (3), then what prevents you from conceding that these modes might subsist in the very Essence of the Lord? They have no escape from any of the consequences they themselves have imposed.

I say: This is the sum of his discourse on this issue in his own words, and it pivots on three points:

First: Were He to receive them, He would not be free of them, and whatever is not free of temporal events is itself temporal.

Second: Were He to receive them, He would thereby be described by them.

Third: If He can receive some of them, then one part (4) of Him must receive others—yet they themselves do not affirm that. These latter two arguments are purely dialectical. For whether He is described by the acts that inhere in Him or only by the attributes that are essential to Him is a verbal dispute. Likewise, when the opponent permits the inherence of some while forbidding others, he must either show a difference between what is forbidden (5) and what is permitted or fail to do so. If he shows a difference, the distinction stands; if he does not, that may simply reflect his incapacity. And should it be assumed (6) that in reality there is no difference, then one of two consequences necessarily follows (7)—not a particular one in itself: either the allowance of all, or the prohibition of