Difference between revisions of "Omnipresence"

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== Balancing Omnipresence and Transcendence ==
 
== Balancing Omnipresence and Transcendence ==
  
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On the face of it, there seems to be a problem of balancing God's omnipresence with God's transcendence. There seems to be an effort needed to keep from being forced to one side or the other: to [[Deism]], or, to [[Pantheism]].
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On the face of it, there seems to be a problem of balancing God's omnipresence with God's [[transcendence]]. There seems to be an effort needed to keep from being forced to one side or the other: to [[Deism]], or, to [[Pantheism]].
  
 
Deism is the view that God's transcendence prevents Him from interacting fully with His Creation. Pantheism, in its purest form, is the view that God's omnipresence prevents Him from actually being the Creator, such that the Creation '''''is''''' God, and that otherwise there is no God.
 
Deism is the view that God's transcendence prevents Him from interacting fully with His Creation. Pantheism, in its purest form, is the view that God's omnipresence prevents Him from actually being the Creator, such that the Creation '''''is''''' God, and that otherwise there is no God.

Revision as of 00:18, June 7, 2011

Omnipresence means being everywhere all at once. It may include being not only in in all of space, but in all of time. The most meaningful kind of omnipresence includes being present in all of space and at all times.

There are only two kinds of things that can be omnipresent, but each in a different way: everything other than God, and God Himself alone.

God is everywhere within His Creation, but God also transcends, or is beyond, His Creation.

Balancing Omnipresence and Transcendence

On the face of it, there seems to be a problem of balancing God's omnipresence with God's transcendence. There seems to be an effort needed to keep from being forced to one side or the other: to Deism, or, to Pantheism.

Deism is the view that God's transcendence prevents Him from interacting fully with His Creation. Pantheism, in its purest form, is the view that God's omnipresence prevents Him from actually being the Creator, such that the Creation is God, and that otherwise there is no God.

So, God must be transcendent and omnipresent in order to be God. But, then, is God more transcendent that He is omnipresent? But, if we assume that God's transcendence and omnipresence are equally 'weighted', then, by what logical mechanisms can we see them as equally 'weighted'?

The belief of Pantheism may be the result of admitting the natural sense that God is omnipresent while rejecting, or else failing take into account, the sense that God is transcendent. Deism may be the result of believing in the transcendence of God while failing to see how God can actually be present in His Creation without being His Creation.

In any case, there is a dualistic view of God's omnipresence and God's transcendence. This is the view that God's omnipresence is different from God's transcendence. So, there is, then, a need to balance them.

But, there may be at least one way to resolve the seeming conflict between God's omnipresence and God's transcendence: by allowing that the classical geometric point may actually exist.

The classical geometric point is any point in space which cannot be divided into smaller spaces. This means that this point, if it exists, actually has no space. It's simply there, everywhere, in all of space, and in all of matter. It takes up all of space without taking up any of it.

From a classical view of physics, such a point allows that all of space and matter is infinitely divisible. In any case, if there really does exist a true, space-less point, then that point can be thought of as a kind of 'doorway' between God and all of His Creation. God can, then, be transcendent in the same way that He is omnipresent. In other words, He doesn't need to have extended Himself in order to be omnipresent. He doesn't need to take your chair from you in order to be in your chair: He can be in your chair right along with you without forcing you to one side.