INFINITE COMPASSION AND POTENTIALITY: RESIGNIFYING THE CONCEPT OF DIVINE “OMNIPOTENCE”

Abstract

Based on the assumption that Modernity has captured the concept of divine “omnipotence” in order to justify the thinking subject's dominion over all things created, our intention is to resignify it through a dialogue with the Francis­can theologian Duns Scotus. Two of his proposals, among others, are particularly relevant to our aim: God as promoter of freedom and the univocity of the being. “Infinite compassion and potentiality” emerge, in the midst of the resignification of divine omnipotence, as distinctive features of the Creator. We therefore emphasize two of its characteristic dimensions, promise and care, expressed by two funda­mental attitudes in the very act of creating: “attracting from within” the history and creation for attaining the promised fullness and “letting it be” as a desire for dialogic intimacy. As a conclusion, we found that the only self-justified power is that which springs from within, as it is generated in weakness.