or at rest depends on being susceptible to these states. If, then, an existent that can be pointed to is posited but is not susceptible to them, it is described as neither.”

Some say:

“Motion is exclusive to bodies.”

Others say:

“Motion can be predicated of what is not a body.”

This includes those who affirm a kind of motion for the soul while maintaining that it is not a body. The same applies to those who make a similar assertion concerning the Necessary Existent.

[Third Point]

It may be said that being characterized by motion and rest either constitutes an attribute of perfection or does not.

If it is not an attribute of perfection, its absence entails no deficiency, and thus presents no objection. If it is an attribute of perfection, He may be characterized by it, and thus presents no objection.

If it is said:

“It is an attribute of perfection for a body, but not for anything else,”

the reply is:

Either we know that an existent which is not a body exists, or we do not. If we do not know this, we cannot establish a self-subsisting existent for which motion is not a perfection. If we know that an existent which is not a body exists, this knowledge is not self-evident but is arrived at through reasoning, and therefore requires proof.

In that case, either it is possible for an existent that can be pointed to not to be a body, or it is not. If it is possible, then the Creator, exalted is He, may be pointed to and be above the Throne without being a body.

If an existent that can be pointed to cannot exist unless it is a body, then proof is required to establish the existence of an existent that cannot be pointed to and is not a body.