If the term “motion” is of the same kind as the term “temporal origination,” then investigating whether one subsists in Him is like investigating whether the other subsists in Him. It is well known that many speculative thinkers describe Him in this way without saying that He is a body.

[Al-Rāzī’s fourth argument in Lubāb al-Arbaʿīn]

Al-Rāzī said:

“The fourth argument: If the place in which the opponent claims He is located exists and is divisible, then it is a body, and bodies would consequently be beginningless in themselves. Moreover, place is independent, in its existence, of its occupant, since the possibility of a void is conceded by both sides. Yet according to the opponent, it is impossible for the Creator, exalted is He, not to be in a spatial region. He would therefore depend on that region, and place would have a greater claim to necessary existence and divinity.

“If, however, place is nonexistent, existence within it would be impossible. The fact that a body is in a place does not entail this objection against us, because what this means is that one can point to one of its sides as distinct from, yet connected to, another. Applying this meaning to the Creator entails composition, from which He is exalted.”

[Responses to this argument: the first response]

It may be said: We do not concede that these are the only possibilities. Rather, a spatial region may at one time be