The point here is that those who hold that the spirit is an entity subsisting in itself, distinct from the body, its parts, and its accidents, disagreed over whether it is a body occupying space. They held two views, just as they disagreed concerning the angels. The speculative theologians among them say that it is a body, whereas the philosophers say that it is an intellectual substance, not a body.

We have already indicated that what the philosophers call intellectual substances exist only in the mind. Their designation of entities as “abstract” and “separate” originally derives from the human soul: since it separates from the body at death and becomes detached from it, they called it “separate” and “abstract.” They then posited the intellects and souls they affirm, calling them “separate” and “abstract” entities on that basis. By something “separate from matter,” they mean something that is neither a body nor subsists in a body. The soul, however, is connected to the body through governing it, whereas the intellect has no connection whatsoever with bodies.

There is no doubt that the vast majority of rational people affirm a distinction between the body and the spirit that departs from it. People generally call the latter a spirit and the former a body. Yet the word “body” in ordinary Arabic does not have the same meaning as “body” in the technical terminology of the speculative theologians. Rather, as explained earlier, it means the bodily frame: the dense body, or its bulk. The spirit does not resemble the body in bulk and density, and is therefore not called a body.

Thus, whoever holds that angels, spirits, and the like are not bodies in the ordinary linguistic sense is correct in this. The Lord of all worlds is all the more entitled not to be described as a body, for the distinction between spirits and bodies is well established in ordinary language.