Will to Power to Will

On Nietzsche’s “will to power” we might better rewrite as “will to power to will”.

The accumulation of power can never be an end. An end entails rest, and power unexercised contradicts its essential act of motion towards end, so power at its end no longer exists.

First will (FW) knows last will (LW) and desires to become it, and so FW engenders motion to power. FW apprehends power, utilises it as its vehicle, and then fulfils LW. But if FW is will to become LW, what is LW? LW is simply ‘to be’. Hence, in formulation of Will’s essence:

First Will (will to become) » Power (motion to end) » Last Will (will to be).

As will fulfils itself through power, it must retain power to maintain fulfilment. Therefore LW has being by virtue of attained power.

Now, having said all this, we must answer: what of divine power and will?

It is tempting to conclude that this indicates will must be in God, for if God is all-powerful, and power is fulfilment of will’s end, then God must also be all-wilful.

The issue, however, is that it becomes paradoxical: will is a thing’s first cause to power, and then by power, will completes in its end.

Making all-power cause to all-will is a reversal, but making all-will cause to all-power entails an initial point of no power in God.

So, we’re wrong to say God is omnipotent?

No: as God ‘simply is’—not in always have “willed to be”, but rather “is always is”—there is no place for the will to be. Therefore God’s “is-ness”, prior to first and last will, necessitates infinite power for God’s “is”.

To elaborate: why “is-ness” becomes infinite power is because as oppose to ‘being’—entailing the continuity of will’s power to be and so its power defined by the fulfilment of will’s end—God ‘simply is’; God’s “is” negates the convention of definition, is prior to its suggestion.

The simplicity of God “as is” is so extreme in its existence, surpassing will to be, that it is better to think that by a holy means ineffable to us, God “is”, and because God is, his absoluteness causes infinite power to necessarily pour forth from nothingness to conjoin to God.

Of course, expression of sequence in God is not by time or step but by ineffable instance; about God always is omnipotence. But we mean to say that God is not sustained by powered self-will, but rather he is to which power wills itself.

So by God who is, power is always in infinite overflowing. In all things power sews the reflection of God and puts in all the will to be one with God, the true end beyond will and power, drawing all to sublimate becoming and being into is: the completion of will to power to will.

Alexander’s blog

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