ens entium

English

Etymology

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

Noun

ens entium (uncountable)

1. (philosophy) The ‘being of beings’; God.
   • 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 12, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC:

     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.

   • 1754, Erasmus Darwin, letter, November:

     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.

   • 2009, John R Betz, After Enlightenment, Wiley-Blackwell, published 2012, page 328:

     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.’