Dynamis

Aristotle used dynamis to describe potentiality—an acorn's capacity to become an oak—contrasting it with energeia (actuality). When New Testament writers borrowed this term, they transformed it into something explosive: not mere latent possibility, but God's active, miracle-working force breaking into history. This philosophical term for "what could be" became the language for "what God is doing right now," a semantic shift that still shapes how we talk about human potential versus divine intervention.

Every time you encounter words like "dynamic," "dynamite," or "dynamo," you're meeting dynamis's modern descendants. The 19th-century scientists who coined these terms deliberately reached back to the Greek concept of inherent power and capacity. So when Paul writes about the gospel being "the dynamis of God for salvation," he's using the same root that would later name our most explosive inventions—suggesting the early Christians saw their message as containing literal world-changing energy.

In the Gospels, Jesus's miracles are often called dynameis (plural)—literally "powers" or "acts of power." This wasn't metaphorical language; ancient witnesses experienced healings and exorcisms as tangible releases of force, like electricity flowing from Jesus into broken bodies. Mark 5:30 even describes Jesus perceiving that dynamis had "gone out from him" when a hemorrhaging woman touched his cloak, as if divine power were a measurable substance that could be depleted and felt.

When Romans 13:1 declares "there is no authority (exousia) except from God," it's paired with the understanding that governing power (dynamis) flows from divine source. This linkage fueled both medieval divine-right monarchies and 20th-century liberation theology—the same word justifying oppressive regimes and revolutionary movements. Carl Schmitt and Walter Benjamin's debates about sovereignty and violence orbit around this ancient Greek tension: Is power merely capacity, or does it carry inherent moral direction?

The Azusa Street Revival (1906) and subsequent Pentecostal movements reclaimed dynamis as a lived experience, not just doctrine. When Acts 1:8 promises "you will receive dynamis when the Holy Spirit comes upon you," early Pentecostals took it as literally as first-century believers did—expecting physical manifestations, spontaneous healings, and ecstatic utterances as evidence of God's power. This interpretation transformed Christianity's fastest-growing branch into a movement centered on experiential dynamis, making them perhaps the most Aristotelian Christians: convinced that divine potential must actualize in observable phenomena.

Paul's most subversive move was declaring "power (dynamis) is made perfect in weakness" (2 Corinthians 12:9), inverting everything Greek philosophy assumed about potency and capacity. In Greco-Roman culture, dynamis belonged to the strong, the capable, the impressive—yet Paul locates God's ultimate power in a crucified criminal and boasts about his own inadequacies. This paradox continues to destabilize worldly power structures: if divine dynamis flows through weakness, then organizational hierarchies, military might, and impressive credentials might actually obstruct rather than channel real transformative force.