nor originated; and that it is either a creator, a created being, or neither a creator nor a created being. With two existent beings, it can posit that one is concurrent with the other, neither preceding nor following it; or it can say that one is either concurrent with the other, separate from it, or neither concurrent nor separate. It can also posit that one is spatially separate from the other, co-located with it, or neither spatially separate nor co-located. Of two self-subsisting existent beings, one is either inside the other, outside it, or neither inside nor outside it. A being is either spatially located, inhering in something spatially located, or neither spatially located nor inhering in something spatially located; either alive, dead, or neither alive nor dead; either knowing, ignorant, or neither knowing nor ignorant; and either capable, incapable, or neither capable nor incapable.

This is like saying that an existent being is either necessary, possible, or impossible; or that an existent being either has being, lacks being, or neither has nor lacks being. The mind’s ability to entertain these suppositions does not entail that they can exist in external reality. Indeed, even while entertaining them, it knows that some of these categories are impossible in external reality, just as it knows that an existent being cannot be impossible, or that an existent being cannot lack being, and so forth.

Likewise, it knows that an existent being cannot fall outside two exhaustive categories. For example, reason knows that an existent being cannot be neither a creator nor a created being, or