it is not.”

If it is possible, the Mu'tazilite’s argument is defeated. If it is not possible, he can say to him:

“I agreed with you in denying that He occupies space because I believed the proof that everything occupying space has come into being to be sound. For we agreed that whatever occupies space must be composed of indivisible atoms and thus admit of combination and separation, motion and rest. Whatever admits of these is never free of events that arise in time. These events must be finite and have a limit, and whatever necessarily entails something that has a limit must itself have a beginning. Thus, if whatever occupies space is inseparable from something that has a beginning, it too must have a beginning, since nothing can exist without that which it necessarily entails.”

The Ash'arī then says:

“If this proof is sound, and the proof establishing the vision of Allah, His being above creation, and His separateness from it is also sound, I can accept what these proofs entail and affirm His being above creation, the vision of Him, and His separateness without affirming that He occupies space. If, however, these two positions cannot be reconciled, then agreeing with the predecessors and the imams in affirming the vision of Allah, His being above creation, and His separateness from it—while also agreeing with the Quran and Sunnah—is more fitting than agreeing with you on this premise: that the existence of something infinite is impossible. For every group holds two views on this premise: the philosophers hold two views, the Mu'tazilah hold two views, the Ash'arīs hold two views, and the adherents of the Sunnah, hadith, and jurisprudence hold two views.

Most rational thinkers allow the existence of something infinite in general, but among them are those