Scientia potentia est is perhaps better translated as "knowledge is His power", because the context of the sentence refers to the qualities of God and is imbedded in a discussion of heresies that deny the power of God: "statuuntque latiores terminos scientiae Dei quam potestatis, vel potius ejus partis potestatis Dei (nam et ipsa scientia potestas est) qua scit, quam ejus qua movet et agit: ut praesciat quaedam otiose, quae non praedestinet et praeordinet". The English translation of this section includes the following: Interpretation of the notion of power meant by Bacon must therefore take into account his distinction between the power of
Latin word order be used as an auxiliary verb (e.g. "interfectus est" "he was killed"), as a copula (e.g. "dives erat" "he was rich") or as an existential verb, specifying the existence of something. As an existential verb, "est" (or its past tense "erat") often goes at the beginning of the sentence: Of these two orders, the first (with the locative phrase between the verb and the noun) is by far the most common. The second example above is unusual in that it does not present new information but merely reminds the reader of what has already been said ("There was a valley,