Chapter 7
333 | Text and Translation Chapter 7 How he is omnipotent even though he cannot do many things And yet, how are you omnipotent if you cannot do everything? If you can neither be corrupted nor tell a lie nor make the true be false, so that what has been done is undone, and other similar things, how are you capable of everything?
Or is the ability to do these things not a matter of power but of impotence? For he who is able do these things is capable of doing what is an impediment to himself and what he ought not to do. And the greater the extent to which he is able to do this, the greater the extent to which adversity and perversity are a possibility for him, and the less his capability against them. Therefore, one who is able in this way is not enabled by power but by a lack of power. For in that case, it is not said that he is able because he himself is able but because his own lack of ability enables something else to have power over him—or as might be expressed by means of some other manner of speaking in which, as we often do, we speak improperly.
For example, we use "to be" for "not to be" and "to do" for "not to do" or for "to do nothing." For we often say to one who denies something to be: "So it is, just as you say it is," when it would appear to be more proper to say: *So it is not, just as you say it is not." Similarly, we say: "This one sits, just as that one does"; or: "This one rests, just as that one does," when to sit is not to do anything and to rest is to do nothing.
In this way, then, when it is said that someone has the power to do or to suffer what is an impediment to himself or what he should not, power is to be understood as a lack of power, since the greater extent to which one has this power, the more powerful are adversity and perversity over him, and the more powerless he is against them.
Therefore, lord God, you are then more truly omnipotent because you can do nothing through a lack of power, and nothing can have power over you.
334 |I PROSLOGION
CAPITULUM VIII
Quomodo sit misericors et impassibilis Sed et misericors simul et impassibilis quomodo es?
Nam si es impassibilis, non compateris; si non compateris, non est tibi miserum cor ex compassione miseri, quod est esse misercordem. At si non es misercors, unde miseris est tanta consolatio?
Quomodo ergo es et non es misericors, Domine, nisi quia es misericors secundum nos, et non es secundum te? Es quippe secundum nostrum sensum, et non es secundum tuum. Etenim cum tu respicis nos miséros, nos sentimus misericordis effectum, tu non sentis affectum.
Et misericors es igitur, quia miseros salvas et peccatoribus tuis parcis; et misericors non es, quia nulla miseriae compassione afficeris.