in its cause merely because it depends on that cause for its existence, since an effect is not an attribute, nor is its cause a subject characterized by it.’

As for the second objection, someone may say: ‘We do not concede that attributes subsist in a substance because it occupies space. Rather, this may be due to something common to both the substance and the Creator Most High. Even if it is because the substance occupies space, the absence of the evidence in Allah Most High’s case does not entail the absence of what it signifies, as established above. This may also be due to something peculiar to the Creator Most High. There is nothing impossible about accounting for the same judgment by two different grounds in two different cases.’”

I say: As for the first argument, an attribute’s subsisting in its subject is something familiar and intuitively understood. It is clearer than their definition of it as an attribute’s occupying a spatial region as a consequence of its subject occupying that region. People understand how color, taste, and scent subsist in a subject characterized by them, even if this occupation of space never crosses their minds.

If someone claims that every subject possessing attributes occupies space, and that an attribute’s subsisting without a subject that occupies space is impossible,