Presence of God in space or his presenceness

What is not the presence of God in the world

The presentness of God is a subject related to time. I elaborated regarding the timelessness of God and its consequences in my Conversation with God about his presentness. The present essay is, on the other hand, about God in relation to space: what is the “place” of God in space? Where is God? Where does he habitat? This essay is not about present and time, presentness, but about presence and space, presenceness. The names and substance of both are very similar.

We have difficulty answering those questions and understanding these concepts, because we are unable to have a clear idea of the qualities of God. As it is understandable, the concepts of atemporality (no time for God) and spacelessness (no space or place for God) surpass our ability to capture their real meaning. Essay Everyone of us, and the universe, are in God, is an effort to elucidate those questions

Nothing physical

The reason for our inability to comprehend these concepts is evident, because they involve a presence without place, which is a contradiction for us; and a being without time, which is also a contradiction for us. In the physical world, we see presence as related to a place, and being as related to time. And since these concepts are beyond our intelligence, we have to use only analogies from what we know in the physical world.

Thus God is not here, or there, or anywhere else, locally, as in place. God is not spacey present as physical objects are, but the presence of God belongs to another order. Our natural way of thinking, or imagining, is always in physical terms; but we must think about God in a different way: we can not predicate of God anything physical.

What is the presence of God in the world

As in many other subjects, Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) has been the genius who has had the most brilliant ideas about the presence of God in the world, as explored below. There have been in modern times authors as Hartshorne (1897-2000) who says that the world is the body of God; or Swinburne (1977) who speaks of a limited embodiment of God in the world. These interpretations see God limited and temporal, and therefore unacceptable. I won’t elaborate on these opinions.

The presence of God

According to Thomas, literally, “God is in all things by his power, inasmuch as all things are subject to his power; he is by his presence in all things, inasmuch as all things are bare and open to his eyes; he is in all things by his essence, inasmuch as he is present to all as the cause of their being” (Summa Theologica I, Qu 8, art 3). We see in these words that the presence of God in the world is not physical but of another order: it is a presence of power, presence and essence. What does this mean?