through the senses to the spatial region occupied by the Creator, it must be impossible to point through the senses to the Creator. For we know self-evidently that whatever has a direction that cannot be pointed to through the senses cannot itself be pointed to through the senses. Thus, the Creator would not be in a direction.”

It may be said to you: The self-evident knowledge that whatever has a direction that cannot be pointed to cannot itself be pointed to is no stronger than the knowledge that whatever cannot itself be pointed to has a direction that cannot be pointed to. Yet many people—and you are among them in many passages—say that this is on a par with the self-evident knowledge that whatever can be pointed to, and whose direction can be pointed to, must be a body. Many people—indeed, most of them—say that this is on a par with the self-evident knowledge that anything that cannot be pointed to, whose direction cannot be pointed to, and which is neither inside nor outside the world can only be nonexistent. Indeed, those who acknowledge this as self-evident knowledge are more numerous than those who acknowledge the former.

That being so, if you dispute this self-evident knowledge with them, they are not obliged to concede to you that self-evident knowledge whose acceptance would require them to deny this self-evident knowledge. For to concede self-evident knowledge that entails the denial of self-evident knowledge is to concede that two instances of self-evident knowledge contradict one another. That is false, and one is not obliged to concede what is false. And if you do not