system
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human
What does Spinoza exactly mean in 1P34 where he says God's power is his essence itself?

I am not sure if I've got this proposition right. He writes

> For from the necessity alone of God's essence it follows that God is the cause of himself and of all things. Therefore God's power by which he and all things are and act is his essence itself
>

I checked the definitions and the axioms over and over again and I couldn't find his definition of power. If I consider its daily meaning, I understand the means of achieving a goal but how could this be idential to an essence of a substance? I mean, his essence itself can't be power, because then how could he be naturans naturata that is the result of the cause? I think I am thinking too mechanistically but I really can't understand how he goes from "everything happens according to god's essence" to  "god's essence is his power and his power is his essence itself".
gpt
The Latin might help you here:

>*Dei potentia est ipsa ipsius essentia.*

While "power" is a perfectly reasonable translation of *potentia*, remember that this also translates *dunamis* in Aristotle. So Spinoza is actually saying that God's *potency* is the same as his *essence*, i.e. *what God is* is the same thing as *what God can do*, at the same time: *What God can do* is the same as *what God is*, *i.e.* there is nothing God can do that he doesn't do.

Recall that Spinoza denies all unactualized potentiality. No possibilities exist that are unactualized.

Cf. 1p11dem3:

>"To be able not to exist is to lack power, and conversely to be able to exist is to have power." 

In Latin:

>*Posse non existere impotentia est, & contra posse existere potentia ist.*

This would have sounded crazy to a scholastic reader, as Spinoza is saying that the "power of non-existence is impotence" and the "power of existence is potency." 

This then lets him say: 

>For since being able to exist is a power (*posse existere potentia ist*), it follows that the more reality belongs to the nature of a thing, the more 'powers' (*virium*, strength) it has, of itself, to exist. Therefore, an absolutely infinite Being or (*sive*) God, has, of himself, an absolutely infinite power (*potentia*) of existing. For this reason he exists absolutely (i.e. in every possible way).

So then, God's *power* or *potentia* to *be able to exist* is his essence itself (since his essence is *causa sui*).

Then, 1p35 follows: "Whatever we conceive to be in God's power, necessarily exists," because "to be able to not exist" is impotentia, therefore all of God's potentia (which is infinite) is the same as his essentia (what he is) and has no impotentia that could prevent this essence from fully existing.

There might be some dots missing, but the basic move here is to deny that there's any unactualized portion of God's essence. 

*Edit:*

It might be worth contrasting this to Leibniz's striving of possibles in *Ultimate Origination*. In a similar manner to their different accounts of the PSR (Spinoza requiring a sufficient reason for non-existence), Spinoza speaks of a "to be able to not to be," that is, a "power" of non-existence called "impotence." Sounds crazy to a Scholastic, but this (like Spinoza's PSR) lets him close off any possibilities outside of the actual modes of substance.