be increased or decreased, or that neither the absence nor the presence of increase and decrease can be predicated of His essence. The reasoning behind this would be: one possibility is that His essence has a magnitude and a limit. If this is impossible, then increase and decrease can no more be denied of Him than they can be affirmed of Him, since such affirmation and negation apply only to something that has magnitude.

If he means that His essence neither increases nor decreases, this is precisely the position of his opponents, whom he calls corporealists. But if he means that increase and decrease can no more be denied of His essence than affirmed of it, then he should be told:

Your statement, “This entails that He, exalted is He, is not susceptible to increase or decrease,” conveys only the first meaning. For you did not say, “He is characterized by magnitude and a limit, which necessarily entails one of two contradictory alternatives: the presence or absence of increase and decrease, or their possibility or impossibility.” Rather, you said, “This entails that He, exalted is He, is not susceptible to increase or decrease.” You thus denied His susceptibility to these two things, but you did not deny, with regard to Him, the possibility of the two contradictory alternatives—their presence and their absence—unlike what you said concerning