Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. We are currently going through the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas with the goal of developing a deeper understanding of the doctrine of God. People who do not have a copy of the Summa can go and read the one at newadvent.org. I also know I got a free copy of at least the first book on Kindle so if you have a kindle or an IPhone app with kindle, you can go that route. I do ask for your prayers as well. First, I ask for your prayers for my continued Christlikeness. Second, I ask for prayers for my finances. Finally, I ask for prayers in a third related area in my life. For now, let’s get to the question.
We’ve been covering God’s omnipresence and we’re going to wrap that up tonight by asking if God alone is everywhere. Aquinas answers of course that he is. What is important to God is that he is everywhere essentially and not by his very nature. If there was a grain and that grain was the size of the universe, then that grain would be everywhere, but it wouldn’t be essentially. It’d just happen to fit perfectly.
What about the universe itself? Not every part of the universe is in every part. The universe has several parts to it. Jupiter is not in Saturn. Our galaxies are not in other galaxies. (I do realize some galaxies are coming together, but only one thing can be in a location at one time.
To God alone however does it belong to be everywhere essentially not by the nature of the universe, but by the nature of himself. Now this is where things are going to get really exciting for Aquinas as we’ve said earlier. However, as I say that, I realize that we should see all doctrine of God as exciting.
You take the smallest grain now that you can imagine. How much of God is in that space where the grain is? Answer. All of him. There is not one place in this universe where the entire presence of God does not dwell. He is all around you. It’s a creepy feeling in some ways as I sit here typing and think “Yes. God is here all around me. He’s at my keyboard. He’s at my dinner nearby. He’s in the ginger ale I have to drink. He’s everywhere.
Application of this? We need to be more aware of God. I wonder when we get to Heaven if we’ll look back and think on so many hard times in our life and realize when we look back that God was there all along. I am remembering the story of the footprints in the sand where the man walks along on the beach with God and there are two footprints, but when life gets hard, there is one set. God tells him he didn’t leave him. It was in the hard times, that God was carrying him.
This should also make us be aware of sin. Try to do something wrong? God’s always watching. Thankfully, he’s also always there with his love and forgiveness. Paul says in Acts 17 that he is not far from any of us. Yes. Paul knew very well how to do his metaphysics. Let’s remember that today and the rest of our lives.
We shall begin a new topic on the doctrine of God tomorrow.
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