place. They take no consistent position on this: sometimes they say that He is in every place, and sometimes they say that He is in no place at all, neither within the world nor outside it. They may utter the former while intending the latter, because hearts recoil from affirming an existent being who is neither within the world nor outside it; the falsity of this is evident even to elementary reason. Thus, they tell ordinary people that He is everywhere, since this at least affirms something in general terms. What their speculative thinkers intend, however, is universal negation.

Jahm and their leading authorities used ambiguous expressions, all intended to convey that He is not over the Throne. One such statement of his is: “He is over the Throne just as He is beneath the earth; He is not in one place to the exclusion of another.” This can be said both of one who exists in all these places and of one who is in none of them.

Many of them, including adherents of the doctrine of union and others, explicitly assert the actual opposite of this negation, saying that His essence exists in every place. Indeed, they even say