of determinate magnitude, nor does He have a limit. It is therefore inadmissible to say that He is greater, smaller, or equal, because having one magnitude rather than another presupposes that He has magnitude and a limit in Himself. If, then, He has neither magnitude nor limit in Himself, He cannot be described in terms that entail this, such as being greater, smaller, or equal. This is the position of the Kullābiyya and Ashʿariyya, and of various groups among the jurists, hadith scholars, and Sufis.

Their position must be either true or false. If it is true, the objection is answered. If it is false, one of the two positions they hold must be false, without determining which: either the position on which they agree with you—denying that He is a body, which entails denying limit and magnitude—or the position on which they agree with those who affirm the divine attributes, namely that He is above the Throne and outside the world. If their error entails only that one of these two positions is false, without determining which, you cannot identify the false position as the one on which we disagree with you rather than the one on which we agree with you, except on the basis of proof. Yet you have offered no proof here requiring that conclusion. Instead, you have treated what follows from their agreement with you as a mere counterargument. What they have said concerning the denial of divisibility has already been discussed.

The third response is that the proponent of the argument has already stated that the point on which these people disagree with you is known necessarily and self-evidently. For self-evident reason rejects the existence of a being that is neither within the world nor outside it, just as it rejects the existence of a being that is neither self-subsisting nor subsisting in another, neither coexistent with the world nor prior to it, and neither eternal nor brought into being. As for the position on which they agree with you, namely the denial of a limit