The twenty-fifth argument: One may say: Suppose you explicitly state that the figurative meaning of the name is that He has no magnitude. If He has no magnitude, He cannot be described as increasing or decreasing, nor as neither increasing nor decreasing. For a thing’s increasing or decreasing—or neither increasing nor decreasing—presupposes its having magnitude. Thus, what has no magnitude cannot be described as increasing or decreasing, nor as neither increasing nor decreasing. It is like what is nonexistent: one cannot say that it increases or decreases, nor that it neither increases nor decreases. We have discussed this at length in connection with being described as having a limit or having none.

Accordingly, being incapable of bearing either of these opposing descriptions can characterize only what is nonexistent, not what exists, as we have explained above. For what is nonexistent cannot bear opposing attributes: one cannot call it knowing or ignorant, capable or incapable, nor say that it increases, decreases, does not increase, or does not decrease.