There is only one Presence and one Power
in our lives and in the universe:
God the Good, omnipotent
expressing within each of us as
the indwelling Christ.
Why do I repeat this every Sunday at my Unity centre? For me, this statement holds a few problems. In particular the word “omnipotent” (sometimes stated as the noun “omnipotence”. How can God be both good and omnipotent? The omnipotence of this God would be able to prevent all that is not good. It is clear that evil exists in the world, that people suffer, that bad things happen to good people. If God were indeed both good and omnipotent these things would not, could not, happen.
With a variety of minor changes, this is the Statement of Faith that is expressed in many Unity Centres throughout the USA and in other parts of the world. Mostly it is God the Good, omnipoten(t)(ce).
Myrtle Fillmore wrote a different variation:
God is the one Presence and the one Power—the Good omnipotent.[1]
Notice the lack of punctuation between “Good” and “omnipotent”. Did she, perhaps, mean something different? Was she saying that good is omnipotent, that good will overcome evil? This is different from saying that the only Presence and Power is an all-powerful good God which is how the Statement of Faith reads.
Unity World Wide Ministries list the first two of Unity’s five basic principles as:
- There is only one Presence and one Power active as the universe and as my life, God the Good.
- Our essence is of God; therefore, we are inherently good. This God essence, called the Christ, was fully expressed in Jesus.
In this set of principles there is no mention of “omnipotence”. Perhaps those statements of faith should be reworded omitting the word “omnipotent” to read:
There is only one Presence and one Power
in our lives and in the universe:
God the Good
expressing within each of us as
the indwelling Christ.
[1] Myrtle Fillmore, How to Let God
Magenta Heart Centre 