distinctness in magnitude and direction can be known without this, then it is known that this distinctness is also established, even though the other is established as well, and that He is distinct from creation in both respects. Indeed, distinctness in direction and magnitude is more complete, for it applies to what subsists in itself, just as it applies to what subsists in another. For a thing’s not subsisting in itself prevents it from independently having magnitude, a spatial location, and a direction. From this we discern:

The Thirty-Seventh Argument

It is known that Allah’s distinctness from His creation is greater than the distinctness of created things from one another, whether bodies from other bodies, accidents from other accidents, or bodies from accidents. Now, even when bodies and accidents are alike, they are distinct by virtue of their spatial locations and directions, which necessarily entail the distinctness of their individual entities. When they differ, they are likewise distinct by virtue of their differing spatial locations and directions, in addition to their differences—as with two different bodies, or two different accidents inhering in two different substrates. The least respect in which things are distinct is difference in reality and attribute without difference in spatial location, as with two different accidents inhering in a single substrate. Thus, if the Creator were distinct from His creation merely through