Retrieving Divine Immensity and Omnipresence

Inman, Ross D.

doi:10.5040/9780567681317.ch-010

Cited by 2 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 12 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…15 Definitive presence, … is the mode of presence that uniquely characterizes spiritual creatures, both angels and human souls, in so far as they are both non-composite (and thus mereologically simple) and limited in nature; what is devoid of proper parts cannot be circumscriptively present at a place and thus cannot be partly present at distinct places at the same time. 16 Unlike material beings, spiritual beings can be wholly present at a place and wholly present at distinct sub-places, thus they are capable of being simultaneously wholly multi-located. Anselm provides a helpful example of this mode of presence.…”

Section: God Is Repletively Present At Each Region Of Spacementioning

confidence: 99%

“…As Inman points out, … like created material beings, created spiritual beings like angels and human souls are bound and contained by the places where they are present in so far as their natures are finite and lim-ited… While my immaterial soul, for example, can be wholly present in the whole of my body and wholly present in each part of my body, it cannot be wholly present at some distinct place where my body is not present (e.g., a white sandy beach in Bermuda). 18 Repletive presence is the mode reserved exclusively for conceiving of God's presence. God is repletively present, 'in so far as the divine essence, being spiritual, infinite, and immense, is capable of being wholly present at each and every place at the same time.'…”

Section: God Is Repletively Present At Each Region Of Spacementioning

confidence: 99%

“…God is repletively present, 'in so far as the divine essence, being spiritual, infinite, and immense, is capable of being wholly present at each and every place at the same time.' 19 God, being immaterial, infinite, and immense, is not circumscribed or contained as material beings are. Moreover, the ubiquitous presence of God is not bound as other immaterial beings that are definitively present.…”

Section: God Is Repletively Present At Each Region Of Spacementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Inman sees repletive and definitive presence as differing in a manner of degrees resulting from finitude and infinitude. 20 Offering Thomas Aquinas and William Shedd as examples, he notes that human souls and God are similarly present in the places they are located, while God, being unlimited, is located everywhere. The divine essence is wholly multi-located at every region of space and is neither limited nor contained by any region or the cosmos itself.…”

Section: God Is Repletively Present At Each Region Of Spacementioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

A Paradoxical Account of Divine Omnipresence

Price

2023

The Heythrop Journal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This essay examines the doctrine of divine omnipresence. I begin by presenting three desiderata for an adequate account of omnipresence. Four accounts are analyzed in light of these desiderata, two in the tradition and two in contemporary philosophical theology. I argue that none succeed in providing an adequate account of divine omnipresence. As an alternative, I offer a paradoxical account of omnipresence, arguing that one can be rational in affirming that what appears to be a doctrine afflicted by apparent contradiction is in fact merely a paradox. I explain what makes affirmations of paradoxical doctrines rational, why omnipresence should be understood as a paradox, and discuss a similar account of omnipresence in the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. I. INTRODUCTION 1The doctrine of divine omnipresence is affirmed by virtually all theistic religious traditions. Classical theists, neo-classical theists, open theists, panentheists, pantheists, and almost every other model of God share this belief in common. Yet the omnipresence of God is an intuitively strange concept. In the typical list of divine attributes, it is one of the most frequently excluded. When it is included, it receives relatively less attention than the other divine attributes.The common way of articulating omnipresence is to say that God is present everywhere. As we will see, a more nuanced definition of omnipresence is necessary. For when we normally speak of some object, x, being present at a location, y, we understand x being located in or at y in a physical sense. X is present at y in virtue of occupying the space that makes up y. In other words, to be present at y is to occupy some region of space, and in order to do that, x must be physical. However, it is a point of dogmatics in most theistic traditions that God is immaterial. Perhaps more than any other divine attribute, omnipresence invokes the most apparent tensions with other divine attributes. 2 In this paper, I will outline three desiderata for a distinctly Christian understanding of omnipresence 3 and argue that none of the major views offered in the tradition or contemporary theology adequately accounts for these desiderata. Rather than motivating a rejection of omnipresence, I propose that theologians should embrace a paradoxical account of omnipresence and that they are rational in doing so. This is not to say that a coherent account, one which does not need to make recourse to paradox, could not be found. Rather, I argue that one can rationally affirm that omnipresence is a paradox in the absence of such an account. I then respond to an objection made against this appeal to paradox. II. BIBLICAL SUPPORT FOR DIVINE OMNIPRESENCEBefore moving into theological and philosophical considerations regarding omnipresence, a brief word concerning the biblical motivations for this divine attribute will be helpful. The idea

show abstract

Section: God Is Repletively Present At Each Region Of Spacementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: God Is Repletively Present At Each Region Of Spacementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: God Is Repletively Present At Each Region Of Spacementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: God Is Repletively Present At Each Region Of Spacementioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

A Paradoxical Account of Divine Omnipresence

Price

2023

The Heythrop Journal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…At a general level, an entity that is (exactly and/or weakly) located at a region can, according to Ross Inman (2017Inman ( , 2021, be so located in a fundamental or a derivative sense. 15 More specifically, an entity that is present at a certain region fundamentally is exactly or weakly located at that region in its own right.…”

Section: The Nature Of Powerful Tropes and Locationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Modal (Realist) Ontological Argument

Sijuwade¹

2022

Philosophy and Theology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article aims to provide a new ontological argument for the existence of God. A specific ‘modal’ version of the ontological argument—termed the Modal Realist Ontological Argument—is formulated within the modal realist metaphysical framework of David K. Lewis, Kris McDaniel and Philip Bricker. Formulating this argument within this specific framework will enable the plausibility of its central premise (i.e., the ‘Possibility Premise’) to be established, and allow one to affirm the soundness of the argument—whilst warding off two oft-raised objections against this type of natural theological argument.

show abstract

Retrieving Divine Immensity and Omnipresence

Abstract: All Biblical quotations in this chapter are from the English Standard Version of the Bible.

Cited by 2 publications

References 12 publications

A Paradoxical Account of Divine Omnipresence

A Paradoxical Account of Divine Omnipresence

The Modal (Realist) Ontological Argument

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About