its actual meaning would be that He is alone, with nothing else alongside Him. For no rational person would say that He is in a nonexistent place and yet is also within something existent that encompasses Him, or above which He is situated, or anything of the sort, since all these are attributes of existent things.

That being so, the assertion, ‘If place is nonexistent, it is impossible for something existent to be in it,’ would follow only if one supposed that there were something in which the Necessary Being was located. But if the expression means that He is alone, with nothing else alongside Him, then He cannot be said to be within something other than Himself.”

[The third response]

It may be said: If you—and rational people generally—say that a body is in a place, without this entailing that it is within something existent, since that would entail infinite dimensions, or within something nonexistent, since nothing can be within nonexistence, then their statement is all the more acceptable and tenable.

As for his statement:

“The meaning of a body’s being in a place is that it is so situated that one of its sides can be pointed to as distinct from, yet contiguous with, the other.”

He may be told: This is precisely the meaning you gave to their statement when you said: “The meaning of a thing’s occupying a particular direction and place is that it can be pointed to by sensory indication as being here or there.”

As for their statement that this meaning entails composition in the Creator, this is the first argument, which has already been answered. Thus, this argument cannot stand without the first, so it should not be presented as a separate argument. The invalidity of the argument from composition has already been explained.

[The fourth response]

It may be said that the terms spatial locus and place may refer to something