In the context of the lectures on Monotheism the three potencies are labeled by Schelling as –A, +A, and +-A. The first two potencies, -A and +A, corresponds to the unlimited and what limits the unlimited. In a way, they are concerned with representing two absolute but in a sense static dimensions we find in God. On one hand, we find –A to be absolute and pure potentiality, namely God as the source of everything. On the other hand, +A is the opposite of the first potency, namely God as absolute and pure act. Thus, -A is God as he contains all possibilities, and +A is God as he actually expresses all possibilities. If these two were the only stages to be found in God's life, we would be stuck with two irreconcilable and opposing terms, something which would seem to break God’s unity. The solution of this impasse is +-A, the third potency as the cause which is the object of itself, in which the two opposites meet one another as the source of everything is one with the positive …show more content…
This, happens as they intertwine and mutually rely on one another to be represented. However, this third potency is not simply a 'putting together' of the first two. +-A is what seals the unity of the living system in which all others coexist. Hence, God comes with the third potency to his full explication, insofar as he dinamically contains the stems and the actualization of all possible realities. Furthermore, argues Schelling, in negative philosophy each posited element “is at the same time the postulate of the following one, and the reality of any preceding moment […] rests on a following one: the first potency is such just because the second one follows, and this is such just as the third one follows”. Hence, in Schelling’s words, the three potencies are a “plurality, not a multiplicity”, a set of fundamentally interrelated elements each of which is unable to persist without the other