an attribute or a power, or anything of that kind—as the basic premise of their position entails—then everything they subsequently say contradicts this: that He is in every place, that He is inside and outside the world, that He is the existence subsisting in created beings, and so forth. For whatever is co-located with the world’s substances and accidents must be described by the properties attributed to substances and accidents, such as composition, divisibility, and the like.

If He is not described by these properties, despite their assertion that He is co-located with the world, this would, besides being manifestly false to reason, contradict all their fundamental premises. For if they posit two co-located entities, making one divisible, composite, and so forth, but not the other, and making the uncompounded One co-located with every composite, this would invalidate every argument they advance.

Their assertion that He is not co-located with the world, together with their assertion that He is distinct from it only in essence and time, combines two contradictory claims. They make His distinction from it no greater than the distinction between a substrate and that which inheres in it, while also saying that He is not distinct in any other way, as explained above.

Were this the place to refute those who say that He Himself is in every place—a view not held by the author of Ta’sīs al-Taqdīs and his associates—we would discuss it at greater length. Our concern here, however, is the position of those who say that He is neither inside nor outside the world, although both positions emanate