The Work and Its Structure
The Dialogus de possest (Dialogue on the Possible-Is or Dialogue on Actualized-Possibility) is a philosophical dialogue written by Nicholas of Cusa in 1460, near the end of his life. It represents one of his mature attempts to articulate his distinctive metaphysical vision through the dialogue form, a genre he employed several times in his later works. The text consists of three dialogues between a Cardinal (representing Cusanus himself) and a learned interlocutor, exploring the nature of divine power and being through the neologism “possest” — a Latin term Cusanus coined by fusing “posse” (to be able, power, possibility) and “est” (is, being, actuality).
The dialogue unfolds as a sustained meditation on how God can be understood as the coincidence of possibility and actuality, of potency and act. Unlike Aristotelian metaphysics, which sharply distinguishes between potentiality and actuality and reserves pure actuality for God while assigning potentiality to creatures, Cusanus proposes that God must be understood as “possest” — that which simultaneously IS and CAN BE, the absolute unity of all possibility with complete actuality. This concept becomes the lens through which the dialogues examine the relationship between God and creation, the nature of divine omnipotence, and how finite beings participate in infinite being.
The First Dialogue: Introducing the Possest
The opening dialogue establishes the fundamental concept and its philosophical necessity. The Cardinal begins by proposing that human intellect, in its search for God, must move beyond conventional categories. Traditional theology speaks of God as pure act (actus purus), following Aristotle and Aquinas, but Cusanus argues this formulation, while true, remains incomplete if it suggests God lacks all potentiality. The problem is that if God is only actuality without any relation to possibility, then possibility itself would exist outside God, limiting divine absoluteness.
The possest resolves this by asserting that in God, possibility and actuality are not two different things but one and the same. God is not merely actual, nor merely possible, but the absolute identity of both. Whatever God can be, God is; whatever God is, encompasses all that God can be. This is not a temporal process — God does not move from potency to act — but an eternal identity. The possest is therefore the most adequate name for the divine nature because it captures God’s absolute infinity: God is all that can possibly be, actually and eternally.
The dialogue explores this through various approaches. One key move is linguistic: the Cardinal notes that “possest” as a term resists the separation that afflicts other theological language. When we say God “is,” we risk suggesting static being; when we say God “can,” we risk suggesting unrealized potential. “Possest” holds both together indissolubly. The interlocutor raises objections drawn from Aristotelian philosophy: doesn’t this confuse the fundamental distinction between potency and act that grounds all metaphysics? The Cardinal responds that this distinction applies within creation, where things move from potency to act, but cannot apply to the absolute itself. In the absolute, all distinctions coincide.
Another crucial theme in the first dialogue is the relationship between the possest and divine names. Traditional negative theology (via negativa) proceeds by denying all creaturely attributes of God: God is not finite, not composite, not mutable. Affirmative theology (via affirmativa) ascribes perfections to God: God is good, wise, powerful. Cusanus has long argued for a third way, the coincidence of opposites (coincidentia oppositorum), where contradictory attributes coincide in God. The possest represents a refinement of this approach: it is not merely that opposites coincide in God, but that the very distinction between possibility and actuality — the most fundamental metaphysical distinction — is transcended in the divine nature.
The Second Dialogue: The Possest and Creation
The second dialogue turns to the relationship between the possest and the created world. If God is the possest — the absolute identity of all possibility and actuality — how does creation relate to this infinite plenitude? The dialogue addresses this through several interconnected arguments.
First, the Cardinal proposes that creation must be understood as a “contraction” (contractio) of the possest. This is a key Cusan term: the universe and all things within it are contracted or limited manifestations of the infinite possest. Everything that exists participates in being and possibility, but in a contracted, finite mode. A tree is actually a tree and potentially can grow, bear fruit, decay — but its being and its possibilities are limited to its particular nature. The possest, by contrast, is unlimited: it is all being and all possibility without restriction.
The dialogue explores how this contraction occurs. It is not a temporal emanation or a necessary overflow, as in Neoplatonic systems. Rather, creation is a free act of divine will whereby the possest manifests itself in limited, distinct forms. Each creature is a unique contraction of the infinite possest, reflecting some aspect of divine possibility-actuality in a finite mode. The multiplicity of creatures exists because no single finite being can adequately express the infinite possest; the universe in its diversity is a distributed image of the divine plenitude.
A significant portion of the second dialogue addresses the problem of evil and imperfection. If all things are contractions of the perfect possest, why is there deficiency, corruption, and evil in the world? The Cardinal’s response draws on the logic of contraction: evil is not a positive reality but a privation, a falling-short that belongs to the nature of contracted being. Because creatures are limited contractions of the infinite, they necessarily lack the fullness of being. This lack is not itself a thing but an absence. The possest contains no evil because it is absolute fullness; creatures can fail to achieve their proper actuality because they are limited participations in that fullness.
The dialogue also examines how individual substances relate to the possest. Each thing has its own “contracted possest” — its particular nature that unifies what it is with what it can become. An acorn is actually an acorn but potentially an oak; its nature is the contracted unity of this actuality and potentiality. This contracted possest in each creature is an image, however distant, of the absolute possest. The interlocutor asks whether this means creatures are divine, and the Cardinal carefully distinguishes: creatures participate in the possest but are not identical with it. They are images, not the reality itself; contracted, not absolute.
The second dialogue concludes with reflections on human knowledge of the possest. Because the human mind itself is a contracted possest — actually thinking certain thoughts, potentially capable of all thought within its nature — it has a unique capacity to recognize the absolute possest. The mind’s ability to grasp the concept of possest, even imperfectly, demonstrates its kinship with the divine. Yet this knowledge remains asymptotic: we can approach understanding of the possest through learned ignorance (docta ignorantia), recognizing that our concepts never adequately capture the infinite reality.
The Third Dialogue: The Possest and Christ
The third dialogue represents the theological culmination of the work, turning to Christology and the Incarnation. Here Cusanus makes his most distinctive and daring move: understanding Christ as the perfect union of the absolute possest (divine nature) and the contracted possest (human nature).
The dialogue begins by recapitulating the distinction between the absolute possest (God) and contracted possest (creatures), then poses the question: can these be united? In ordinary creatures, the answer is no — a finite being cannot become infinite, a contracted possest cannot become absolute. But the Cardinal proposes that in Christ, a unique union occurs: the absolute possest assumes a contracted possest (human nature) in such a way that a single person is both fully divine and fully human.
This is not a simple mixture or confusion of natures. The divine nature remains absolute possest — infinite, eternal, unchanging. The human nature remains contracted possest — finite, temporal, capable of growth and suffering. But in the person of Christ, these two are united without either being diminished or transformed into the other. The Cardinal uses the analogy of light and a colored medium: when light shines through colored glass, the light remains pure light in its nature, but it appears colored; similarly, the absolute possest, while remaining absolute, manifests itself in and through the contracted possest of Christ’s humanity.
The dialogue explores the soteriological implications of this union. Because Christ unites the absolute and contracted possest in one person, he becomes the mediator between God and creation. In him, the infinite and finite meet. Through this union, human nature is elevated to its highest possible realization: not by ceasing to be contracted (which would destroy it) but by being assumed into personal union with the absolute. This provides the pattern for human salvation: we are called to participate ever more fully in the possest through union with Christ.
A significant portion of the third dialogue addresses how this Christological vision relates to traditional theological formulations. The interlocutor raises the language of the Council of Chalcedon — one person in two natures, divine and human, without confusion, change, division, or separation. The Cardinal affirms this but suggests that the concept of possest provides a deeper metaphysical framework for understanding it. The two natures are not simply juxtaposed; they are related as absolute possest to contracted possest, which explains both their distinction (absolute versus contracted) and their capacity for union (both are modes of possest).
The dialogue also considers the Virgin Mary’s role. As the one who bore Christ, Mary represents the highest realization of contracted human nature in its receptivity to the absolute. Her fiat — her acceptance of the Incarnation — is the supreme instance of a contracted possest opening itself to union with the absolute possest. The Cardinal suggests that in Mary, human possibility is perfectly actualized in its orientation toward God.
The third dialogue concludes with reflections on the Church and sacraments as extensions of the Incarnation. If Christ is the union of absolute and contracted possest, the Church is the mystical body through which this union continues in history. The sacraments are means by which individual contracted possests (human persons) are drawn into union with the absolute possest through Christ. Baptism, Eucharist, and the other sacraments are not merely symbolic but ontologically effective: they actually unite the finite with the infinite, the contracted with the absolute, though in a mode appropriate to our present condition.
The work ends with the Cardinal emphasizing that the possest remains ultimately mysterious. Even with this concept, we have not comprehended God but only found a better way to acknowledge our incomprehension. The possest points toward the infinite reality but does not capture it. This is consistent with Cusanus’s broader epistemology of learned ignorance: the wisest knowledge is knowing that God exceeds all our concepts, and the best concepts are those that most clearly reveal their own inadequacy while still directing the mind toward truth.
Nicholas of Cusa: Context and Significance
Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464) was one of the most original philosophical and theological minds of the fifteenth century. Born Nikolaus Krebs in Kues (Cusa) on the Moselle River, he studied at Heidelberg, Padua (where he earned a doctorate in canon law), and Cologne. His career combined ecclesiastical administration with philosophical speculation: he served as a cardinal of the Catholic Church, bishop of Brixen, and papal legate, while simultaneously producing a remarkable body of philosophical and theological works.
Cusanus lived during a period of profound transition. The late medieval synthesis was fragmenting; the Renaissance was emerging; the printing press was revolutionizing knowledge; the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople (1453) was reshaping Christendom’s relationship with the East. Cusanus engaged all these currents: he participated in the Council of Basel and efforts at church reform; he collected Greek manuscripts and promoted their study; he wrote on mathematics, astronomy, and calendar reform; he engaged with Islamic and Jewish thought.
His philosophical project was distinctive. While deeply learned in scholastic theology and Aristotelian philosophy, Cusanus was dissatisfied with their limitations. He drew on Neoplatonic sources, particularly Proclus and Pseudo-Dionysius, but transformed them. His central insight — that God must be understood as the coincidence of opposites, beyond the principle of non-contradiction that governs finite thought — challenged fundamental assumptions of Aristotelian logic. Yet he was not simply a mystic rejecting reason; he sought a higher rationality that could acknowledge its own limits while still pursuing truth.
The Possest in Cusanus’s Thought
The Dialogus de possest comes from 1460, just four years before Cusanus’s death, and represents a mature formulation of themes he had explored throughout his career. His first major work, De docta ignorantia (On Learned Ignorance, 1440), had introduced the coincidence of opposites and the idea that God is the maximum that is simultaneously the minimum. De coniecturis (On Conjectures) explored how human knowledge consists of conjectures or approximations rather than perfect comprehension. De visione Dei (On the Vision of God, 1453) used the image of an icon whose eyes seem to follow every viewer to explore how God sees all things individually while remaining one.
The possest concept builds on all these earlier insights but focuses them with particular precision. Where “coincidence of opposites” is a general principle, “possest” is a specific term that captures the divine nature’s unique character. It addresses a problem implicit in earlier formulations: if God is the coincidence of opposites, does this mean God contains contradiction? The possest responds by showing that possibility and actuality are not truly opposite in God but identical — not a contradiction but a transcendence of a distinction that applies only to creatures.
The concept also reflects Cusanus’s ongoing engagement with language and naming. Throughout his works, he experiments with neologisms and paradoxical formulations, seeking words that break through conventional categories. “Possest” is perhaps his most successful coinage: it is immediately intelligible (anyone who knows Latin can parse it) yet conceptually radical (it violates normal grammatical and metaphysical categories). This combination makes it an effective tool for learned ignorance — it helps the mind reach toward what it cannot fully grasp.
Philosophical and Theological Significance
The Dialogus de possest makes several significant contributions to medieval and Renaissance thought. First, it offers an alternative to the dominant Aristotelian-Thomistic metaphysics of act and potency. While Aquinas had argued that God is pure act without any potentiality, Cusanus suggests this formulation, though true in intent, risks making possibility something outside God. By identifying God as possest, Cusanus preserves divine absoluteness while incorporating possibility into the divine nature itself.
Second, the work develops a sophisticated account of participation. How do finite beings relate to infinite being? The concept of contracted possest provides an answer: each creature is a limited, particular manifestation of the unlimited possest. This avoids both pantheism (creatures are not identical with God) and dualism (creatures are not utterly separate from God). Creation is a contraction of divine plenitude, distinct from God yet dependent on and expressive of divine reality.
Third, the Christological application is innovative. By understanding Christ as the union of absolute and contracted possest, Cusanus provides a metaphysical framework for the Incarnation that goes beyond juridical or moral models. The Incarnation is not merely God assuming a human disguise or a legal transaction; it is the ontological union of infinite and finite, absolute and contracted, in one person. This has implications for understanding salvation: we are saved not merely by Christ’s merits being applied to us but by being drawn into the union of divine and human that he embodies.
Fourth, the work exemplifies Cusanus’s method of learned ignorance. The dialogue form itself enacts this: the Cardinal does not simply lecture but engages in back-and-forth with an interlocutor, acknowledging difficulties and refining formulations. The conclusion emphasizes that even the concept of possest is inadequate to the divine reality. This epistemological humility combined with bold speculation is characteristic of Cusanus’s approach.
Reception and Influence
The immediate reception of Cusanus’s works was mixed. Some contemporaries recognized his genius; others found his speculations dangerous or incomprehensible. His philosophical works were less widely read than his ecclesiastical and reform writings during his lifetime. After his death, his thought was preserved and studied primarily in German lands, particularly in circles influenced by mysticism and Neoplatonism.
The Dialogus de possest specifically was not as widely circulated as De docta ignorantia or De visione Dei. Its technical terminology and dense argumentation made it challenging. However, it was studied by those who engaged seriously with Cusanus’s metaphysics, and the concept of possest became recognized as a key element of his mature thought.
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Cusanus’s influence can be traced in various thinkers. Giordano Bruno drew on Cusan ideas about the infinite universe and the coincidence of opposites, though he developed them in more radical, pantheistic directions. Leibniz studied Cusanus and found in him a precursor to his own ideas about possible worlds and the principle of sufficient reason. The concept of possest, with its fusion of possibility and actuality, resonates with Leibniz’s notion that God actualizes the best of all possible worlds.
In modern scholarship, Cusanus has been recognized as a pivotal figure bridging medieval and modern thought. Ernst Cassirer argued that Cusanus anticipated key themes of Renaissance philosophy and even modern epistemology. The possest concept has been studied as an important development in the metaphysics of modality — the philosophical study of possibility, necessity, and actuality. By making possibility and actuality identical in God, Cusanus offers a distinctive position in debates about divine power and the nature of possible worlds.
The work also has significance for understanding the development of Christian Neoplatonism. While Cusanus draws on Proclus and Pseudo-Dionysius, he transforms their emanationist schemes. The possest is not the One from which all things emanate by necessity; it is the free creator who manifests in contracted forms. This represents a Christianization of Neoplatonism more thorough than earlier medieval attempts.
In contemporary philosophy of religion, the Dialogus de possest offers resources for thinking about divine transcendence and immanence. The concept of contracted possest suggests how God can be both utterly beyond creation (as absolute possest) and intimately present within it (as the source and ground of all contracted possest). This has implications for panentheism and debates about God’s relationship to the world.
The work also contributes to Christological reflection. In an era when much Christology focuses on historical Jesus studies or ethical teachings, Cusanus’s metaphysical approach to the Incarnation offers a different perspective. Understanding Christ as the union of absolute and contracted possest provides a framework for affirming both full divinity and full humanity without reducing either to the other.
Conclusion
The Dialogus de possest represents Nicholas of Cusa at his most philosophically ambitious and theologically profound. Through the concept of possest — the identity of possibility and actuality in God — he offers a distinctive vision of divine nature, creation, and Incarnation. The work challenges conventional metaphysical categories, proposing that the most fundamental distinction in Aristotelian philosophy (potency and act) does not apply to God but is transcended in the divine infinity.
The three dialogues build systematically: from establishing the concept of possest as the best name for God, through exploring how creation relates to the possest as contracted manifestations, to the climactic vision of Christ as the union of absolute and contracted possest. Throughout, Cusanus maintains his characteristic combination of speculative boldness and epistemological humility, pushing thought to its limits while acknowledging that the divine reality exceeds all concepts.
For readers approaching this work, it demands patience and philosophical sophistication. The arguments are dense, the terminology technical, the implications far-reaching. But for those willing to engage it seriously, the Dialogus de possest offers a profound meditation on the nature of God, the structure of reality, and the meaning of the Incarnation — a meditation that remains philosophically and theologically provocative more than five centuries after it was written.
