“The One who neither increases nor decreases.” For if one takes the statement as a mere negation, one can do so in both cases. If, however, one takes it to mean that what is negated is impossible—saying, “He is the One into whom nothing else can enter and from whom nothing else can emerge”—this is equivalent to saying that He is not susceptible to increase or decrease. This holds whether impossibility is explained as the impossibility of conceiving of this in the one so described, or as its impossibility in the one so described, as their opponents maintain.

The twentieth point: it may be said that when something enters another thing, this is an increase in the latter, and when a part leaves it, this is a decrease in it. This is therefore a kind of increase and decrease. If, then, He is described as not susceptible to increase or decrease, this includes His not being susceptible to this increase and this decrease.

If, then, “solid” is defined as that into which nothing else enters—or can enter—and from which nothing separates, yet it is said that this meaning cannot be affirmed of Allah Most High, this is an obvious contradiction. For the impossibility of a genus in His case entails the negation of its species. How, then, can He be described as not susceptible to increase or decrease, or as neither increasing nor decreasing, without also being described as not susceptible to this increase and this decrease, or as not undergoing them?