that have positive existence, but are instead privations. The matter thus amounts to nothing more than His acting in His own person and exercising agency. The agent’s priority over this act is a priority in essence, like the priority of the hand’s movement over the ring’s movement; it does not entail temporal priority.

On this basis, the fifth response is as follows. You say: “If He were in any spatial region or direction, His being there would either be necessary or not necessary.” The reply is: Do you mean the necessity of being in a spatial region as such, or the necessity of being in a particular spatial region? If you mean the former, the five arguments mentioned do not rule that out. If you mean the latter, then the reply to his statement, “This entails that Allah’s essence being in a spatial region cannot be eternal,” is: This is not conceded.

To his statement, “The existence of that particular determination could only be favoured through an agent who brings it about. In every such case, the agent precedes it, and whatever is posterior to another cannot be eternal,” the reply is: Priority in a case such as this