Second, one may ask: What do you mean by saying, “He must either occupy the same place as it or be separate from it in any direction whatsoever”? Do you mean that reason attests that separation is necessary, whatever the direction may be? Or do you mean that, besides separation being necessary, separation in every direction must also be possible? These are two different meanings. The necessity of separation as such, without specifying a direction, is different from the necessity of separation together with the necessity that it be possible in every direction.

If he means that any two existing things must either occupy the same place or be separate from one another, and that, in addition, it must be possible for one to be separate from the other in every direction, then this much is known neither self-evidently nor through sense perception. Many people dispute much of this. In short, this is not the self-evident knowledge we have concerning observable things. We do not know that everything subsisting in itself can lie in every direction relative to every other thing subsisting in itself. This is by no means self-evidently known. Since it is not self-evidently known, there is no obligation to account for it by a cause common to all existence before establishing that it holds.

Some people therefore say that this does not hold for all created things, while others affirm it of created things but not of the Creator. That being so, the disputant may say: “Evidence has established that this does not hold for all existing things, nor is it self-evidently known to be shared by all