the term “spatial occupancy,” nor deny it, nor affirm or deny the term “direction.” Rather, they affirmed the attributes conveyed by the Book and the Sunnah and denied any likeness to created beings. Whoever examines people’s statements on this subject will find that most of those renowned for reason and knowledge explicitly state that affirming the existence of a being neither co-located with nor separate from another, and similar claims, is known by clear reason, with necessary certainty, to be [unsound or false] (*).

As for the third argument, he says:

“Reason divides what is known into that which is separate, that which is co-located, and that which is neither separate nor co-located,” and similarly with other divisions.

The reply is:

The familiar division into the necessary, the contingent, and that which is neither necessary nor contingent; into the eternal, the originated, and that which is neither eternal nor originated; into that which subsists in itself, that which subsists in another, and that which subsists neither in itself nor in another—and similar divisions—are mental suppositions. It is well known that such suppositions do not establish that these things are possible in external reality. Not every category or supposition posited by the mind is possible or actually exists outside it. Rather, the mind divides whatever occurs to it into the necessary, the impossible, and the contingent, and into the existent and the nonexistent. The mind thus entertains whatever occurs to it, and it is well known that this includes impossibilities that cannot exist outside the mind.

As for his statement:

“The division into the separate and the co-located is not known to be false, just as the proposition that one is half of two is not known to be false.”

We say:

It is not a requirement of self-evident propositions that