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Dictionary

Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

ens entium en · NOUN

Etymology

From Latin ens (“being”) + entium (“of beings”). Compare ens.

Meanings

  1. (uncountable) The ‘being of beings’; God.
    • In the absence of revelation, however, the God of metaphysics and natural theology is itself an abstraction, a mere ens entium, in any case, as Heidegger rightly observes, not the kind of God before whom one can ‘make music or dance.’ 2009, John R Betz, After Enlightenment, Wiley-Blackwell, published 2012, page 328:
    • That there exists a superior Ens Entium that form'd [this] wonderful created World is a mathematical Demonstration. That He influences things by a particular Providence is not so evident. 1754, Erasmus Darwin, letter, November
    • Pythagoras shadowed the truth somewhat neerer, judgeing that the knowledge of this first cause and Ens entium must be undefined, without any prescription or declaration. 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 12, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC: