Whoever says that He is neither within places nor outside them is like someone who says that He is neither concurrent with times nor prior to them. Both statements are doctrines of the Jahmiyyah. Yet their earlier position is closer to reason: in their initial teaching, they say that He is everywhere, thus treating Him as something inhering in places and dependent upon them. This is analogous to saying that He is concurrent with originated times. They have thus placed Him within created and originated things. Indeed, they went further, until those among them who profess union identified Him with the very existence of created things. These people acknowledged Him, but then made Him identical with creation or a part of it.

To say that He is within the world, neither separate from it nor in contact with it, is like saying that He is alongside the world, neither prior to it nor concurrent with it. As for the Jahmiyyah in their final position, they negated Him altogether, affirming for Him neither the existence of created things nor any other existence. For they said that He is neither inside the world nor outside it, which is just like saying that He is neither alongside the world nor before it. According to the self-evident judgment of reason, there is no difference between the two.

Whoever responds to this by saying that sound reason rejects dividing what exists into that which does not occupy a spatial locus and that which does is like someone who says that sound reason does not reject dividing what exists into that which is not