Fifth objection: We concede that failure to find something establishes its nonexistence. But we do not concede your claim, “We have found no cause for this determination other than temporal origination and existence.” This can be explained in two ways.

First, one might suggest that the ground for saying that a thing must be either spatially coincident with the world or spatially separate from it is its being an object of sensory indication. For any two things that can be indicated through the senses, the indication of one is either identical to the indication of the other—as with a colour and the thing possessing that colour—which is spatial coincidence; or the indication of one differs from the indication of the other, which is spatial separation. Thus, what makes a thing subject to this division is its being an object of sensory indication.

On this account, unless they establish by proof that He, exalted is He, is an object of sensory indication, it cannot be said that He must be either spatially coincident with the world or spatially separate from it. Yet whether He, exalted is He, is an object of sensory indication is itself disputed. Consequently, the validity of the proof depends on the validity of