Second, if they maintain that some enduring bodies necessarily occupy a particular spatial region, this only invalidates the proof advanced by their opponents. They undoubtedly regard this proof as invalid, just as the early generations and the imams agreed that it belongs to the prohibited forms of speculative theology. Anyone among them who says that He is a body does not deny that not all bodies have a beginning, just as he does not deny that not all self-subsisting entities, or all entities possessing attributes, have a beginning. Rather, he regards as misguided anyone who asserts without qualification that all bodies have a beginning, just as he regards as misguided anyone who makes the same unrestricted assertion about entities possessing attributes, self-subsisting entities, or existing things generally.

Regarding his statement in the fourth argument:

“We know necessarily that all spatial regions are alike, since they are nothing but empty space and sheer void. This precludes anything necessarily occupying one particular region rather than another.”

They reply that His being specifically associated with a particular region is not due to any property in these regions, but to something in Himself: it is impossible for Him to move away from it—as their opponent himself agrees. Moreover, the world occupies its particular spatial region because of something in the world itself, not in its region.

As for the question he raises on their behalf—“Why could His being specifically associated with the direction above not be more fitting?”—and his answer that, before the creation of the world