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Omnipresence (2) God’s Infinite Presence

 
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Omnipresence (2) God’s Infinite Presence
by David Denninger - Saturday, 23 March 2024, 3:14 AM
 

As infinite spirit, God can only always be everywhere in His creation. The word that is used to express the wonder of His infinite presence is “immensity.”

While angelic beings and spirits have no physical bodies or properties, they are finite and can only be present in one place at any particular time. But there is nowhere in heaven or earth where God is not always present.

As Solomon exclaims in his prayer at the dedication of the temple: “Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain You!” (1 Kings 8:27)

Because the universe is God’s finite creation, His presence is necessarily greater. God cannot be contained by any space.

But it is not accurate to conclude that God extends outside the universe in every direction in unending space, because this is thinking about Him in spatial terms and, because God is Spirit, His presence is not a spatial presence. God is a being who exists without size or dimensions in space.

“Before God created the universe, there was no matter or material, so there was no space either. Yet God still existed. Where was God? He was not in a place that we could call a “where,” for there was no “where” or space. But God still was!  . . . He exists as a kind of being that is far greater than we can imagine” (Grudem, Systematic Theology, 175).

                                                                                

                                                 (Spotlight 2, Lesson 6 in Doctrine 101: Learning about God)