for if that were so, there would also have to be another body outside that body, and so on without end.

Thus, the surface of the outermost body of the universe is not a place at all, since no body can exist there. If, then, demonstrative proof establishes the existence of a being in this direction, that being must be other than a body. What cannot exist there is therefore the opposite of what these people suppose: a corporeal being, not an incorporeal one.

Nor can they say, “Outside the universe there is a void.”

For the impossibility of a void has been established in the theoretical sciences. What the term “void” denotes is nothing more than dimensions containing no body—that is, length, breadth, and depth. If it is stripped of these dimensions, it becomes nonexistence; yet if a void is posited as existing, this entails that accidents exist without a body.

This is because dimensions are necessarily accidents belonging to the category of quantity. Nevertheless, ancient doctrines and earlier revealed laws have described that region as the abode of spiritual beings, by which they mean Allah and the angels.

For that region is not a place, nor is it encompassed by time. Likewise, if everything encompassed by time and place is subject to corruption, it may follow that what is there neither undergoes corruption nor comes into being,