the Lord is not a substance, it is impossible for Him to be a body, because a body is composed of substances and depends upon them. The absence of what is indispensable to its being a body necessarily means that it is not a body.

[Ibn Taymiyya’s commentary]

I say:

This argument is plainly weak. Even if something were assumed not to be a single atom, it would not follow that it could not be a body composed of substances. For, according to him, no body is a single atom, although all bodies are composed of substances. Moreover, he has offered no proof that He is not a substance, nor has he ruled out anything that entails being a substance.

This is like proving that He is not knowledge, power, speech, or will: that would not entail that these cannot be His necessary attributes. Denying that something is a particular entity is different from denying that the entity is a necessary concomitant of it.

Furthermore, it may be said:

You have offered no proof that substances are alike; indeed, you explicitly stated that there is no proof of this. Thus, your argument for denying that He is a substance is invalid.

It may also be said that the term “substance” is ambiguous and has several meanings: