of reason that renders this impossible.

The third response is to say that His occupying a spatial region is necessary, and to affirm this decisively on the grounds that the Throne itself is not a spatial region; rather, a spatial region is conceived space. Those who hold this view have two positions on whether movement is possible for Him. Whoever considers it impossible says that when He created the Throne, a new relation arose between Him and the Throne, without any change in His previous attributes—if he describes Him as occupying a spatial region. For we have already mentioned that those who affirm that He is over the Throne hold two positions on this matter.

He may also maintain that His being in a particular spatial region is necessary. Whoever maintains this answers his five arguments as follows. The first argument rests on the assumption that all things occupying spatial regions are alike, and it has already been shown that this is false.

As for his statement in the second argument that, if His being in that direction were necessary and His being elsewhere impossible, that direction would differ in its essential nature from other directions and would therefore be existent, so that something else eternal would exist alongside Allah, exalted is He, the reply is: These people do not say that the spatial region necessary for Allah is something