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A Classical View of Divine Presence

Below is a section adapted from my sermon preached on Psalm 139:1–16, titled, The Presence of God, on 5/8/22. For the full sermon, click here.

 

The historic Christian tradition has understood that God’s presence is two-fold:[1] as it pertains to his intimate relations between he and his people, where he dwells in the hearts of his covenant community, this kind of presence is termed inner sphere or received indwelling in the believer, and his presence to everything he has made as the giver, sustainer, and determiner of life, his outer sphere or his objective presence. Summarizing Thomas Aquinas, he says, God [as Spirit] is in all things by his essence, power, and presence . . . whereby he causes things to exist and continues their existing by his power, as they continue living and sharing in his goodness. . . . God not only exists in the creature, but he also dwells within them as in His own temple.[2]

 

There are two spheres of presence that we need to see: one is God’s outer sphere of presence, whereby we would see his moving creation to its intended purpose and goal he has created if for; and then his inner sphere, his covenant fellowship with creatures, those he has created and elected for glory, as we see in David, the prophets, Israel, the apostles, and the new covenant believers. In this inner sphere, God has determined to glorify himself by glorifying creatures. As the creator of heaven and earth, he loves his creation and has determined to sustain it by his almighty presence to it. Our relations to him are because of him. Having no need or lack in himself for fellowship and communion with anything or anyone outside of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, he brought another reality into existence by creatio ex nihilo—from nothing. According to his decree, he determined to coexist with another reality besides himself. These creatures, God determines to be with them by his direct presence, sharing is goodness with them and providentially guiding them to fulfill his purposes he has for them.

 

All of this inner working, decree language we come to know through the works of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. The Christian tradition says that the Father is the source of these works, the Son is their means, and the Spirit brings them to completion. We get this this triadic formula from the Apostle Paul’s extoling of the mysterious working of the Lord in Romans 11:36 and 1 Corinthians 8:6 when he writes, 

 

Romans 11:36

For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen.

 

1 Corinthians 8:6

yet for us there is one God, the Father. All things are from him, and we exist for him. And there is one Lord, Jesus Christ. All things are through him, and we exist through him.

 

We can see these supported by other texts such as Hebrews 2:10 and Colossians 1:16;

 

Hebrews 2:10

For in bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was entirely appropriate that God—for whom and through whom all things exist—should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings.

 

Colossians 1:16

For everything was created by him, in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities— all things have been created through him and for him.

 

While these works show specific persons being credited with a particular work, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit all work undividedly. Again, we are speaking about the One God who is everywhere present working in creation. There is nowhere nor no thing he is not fully present to and in, acting for his glory. Now we can talk about omnipresence. As noted earlier about God’s presence, we will also speak of his omnipresence in two ways: one is his immanent attribute also designated immensity. And that pertains to God’s boundless measure of his Spirit, as the source fully present, sustaining all things. The operative attribute of God is an older term but memorable and that is his ubiquity, which pertains to God’s presence everywhere. They both are to be kept together, for God is one. It is just a way for us to talk about God’s essence as he is in his perfection and his relation to creatures. For us, we say God is omnipresent because he is immense. In his work of providence, he is present and upholds all things according to his purpose.

 

One of the tendencies that we creatures do is to collapse God’s omnipresence into a presence that factors a “feeling” that God is present. While we want to feel God’s presence in an existential way, God’s presence is always fully present. If he removed his presence, existence itself would pass away. When we look at the world around us, seeing the universe, the world, seasons, people, life, death, etc., what we are seeing is God’s omnipresent self, moving his creation towards the fulfillment of his covenant aims, that of loving and saving fellowship with his elect. We are going to look closer at immensity. Ubiquity will be a little later [see the sermon]. These modes of God’s presence are inextricably linked together comprising his omnipresence. God is the free, transcendent Lord of all things, measureless, everywhere present in power and mercy.

 

Immensity: As the triune God himself, he is sovereignly free for his creative and saving purposes, whereby nothing hinders his goals and aims. Following from this term, we then say God is infinite. In order for God to be as Scripture claims, he must be without location. Nothing can hinder him to fulfill his purposes; nothing can “finite” him; therefore, he must be infinite. And we cannot think of this term as opposite of finite; rather, he is unconditioned by space, time, or anything of the created reality. John Webster calls his infinity, his “intensive perfection.” He is transcendent of all space, with no creaturely property that can magnify our description of it. We can only grasp what it is by the ways and works of God as Father, Son, and Spirit. Webster writes: “In his triune act , . . God’s immensity makes itself operative and known as his omnipresence in and providential ordering of creation.” The effortless and gratuitous works of God give us a glimpse of his qualitative difference from created reality.

 

When we are thinking of immensity, we need to think of nearness. Not just he is close to us; rather, his capacity for nearness is unhindered and intense. Why so? He doesn’t contain space; he doesn’t surround it like a vessel; nor is he dispersed through space; rather, as 1 Kings 8:27 says:

 

1 Kings 8:27

But will God indeed live on earth? Even heaven, the highest heaven, cannot contain you, much less this temple I have built.

 

Because nothing can contain God, he is limitless and without restriction in his presence to creation. And therefore, he is limitless to his whole creation in his ordering, sustaining, and perfecting it as he directs human creatures to fellowship with himself. Going back to our triune formula, John Webster writes, “God is immense as the Father who speaks the limitlessly effective Word of creative love, as the Son who is the Redeemer and head of the entire creation, and as the Spirit who is over all as the Lord and giver of life.”

 

So then, what is God’s omnipresence? I will let Webster answer again: “God’s omnipresence, then, is his entire and constant presence in and to all things—the ceaseless and sovereign lordship in which the Most High, who is without measure or limit, inclines to be present to his creation and so holds it and renews it in life.” As the owner of heaven, earth, and all that is in them, as the exalted one, he is uncontainable.

 

What we have learned about God is that his own presence means he is not restricted to any location; he is the maker of and possessor of all creaturely space unhindered by anything. This God is not like the national gods that only had a power restricted to the various places that the Lord actually had given them. Listen to the prophet Jeremiah:

 

Jeremiah 23:23–24

“Am I a God who is only near”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“and not a God who is far away?

Can a person hide in secret places where I cannot see him?”—the Lord’s declaration. “Do I not fill the heavens and the earth?”—the Lord’s declaration.

 

Divine omnipresence impresses firmly Jesus’ promise at the end of Matthew’s gospel: “I am with you always” (Matthew 28:20). Because he can keep his promises to his people, his omnipresence is then free. God is simple and therefore because he is simple (to learn more about God’s simplicity, see my sermon on it) he is everywhere fully present to his creation, fully in himself. There is no part of him that’s on one side of the world or a part of him that’s looking in on Mars. Rather all of him is fully present to every atom of the created order. Nothing escapes him. He is present to everything in his full spiritual substance, indivisible, and he’s creatively present to it so whatever he determines to bring about he will do it without even a flinch of an eye.

 

God’s full presence to his creation is so that he can providentially bring it to glory. In his providence, he administers all the things that he is determined for his creation that was decreed before time began. In his providence, we see history unfold his ordered works, with the goal of the glory of the inner sphere of human relationship with God. The outer sphere of providence and his presence to it is aimed to complete the inner sphere, where God’s chief concern is himself and the elect.

 

We see God’s power in his presence, as we read in psalm 139:5 that God’s hand was hemmed in over David guiding him and leading him. But this does not mean that God overrules creaturely freedom. Providence cannot be understood as sheer power over creatures. Rather it is God’s loving will and power working through and in creatures for the purpose of glorifying and perfecting them, and having fellowship with those whom God has chosen to indwell with his Spirit.  

 

I have already alluded to it, but as noted, the outer sphere of God’s presence guides creation for the goal of the union of all things. Now, we know that there is a distinction between the world and the redeemed, and that is where we come to the inner circle of God’s presence: covenant relations. While God is the Lord of the universe, he has specifically chosen to meet creatures in their dimension, in their time, place, and social environment. The presence of God moves in and the unbounded becomes bounded to creatures, first in the gospel of Jesus Christ, the triune act of God taking on flesh, uniting himself to creatures forever. And in that divine act of miraculous proportions, the unrestricted, free, and unhindered God of the world, makes a special presence, located in the hearts of the elect. It is a special history that plays out against the backdrop of the outer sphere of his presence to the rest of the world. The history of election is that God calls creatures to fellowship from all various walks of life under his Lordship. They are brought into communion via summons, via creatio ex nihilo, and in that covenant sphere the triune God through sheer gratuitous mercy makes a people for himself.

 

Conclusion

 

In the Garden, Adam broke fellowship with God, and tried to hide from his presence. But what do we see in Psalm 139? There is nowhere to go to escape the Spirit of God. But to restore that breach, God enacted a special history, one where, to quote Webster,

 

God chooses that he will be for us, and so that he will be with us, and so that we will be with him, and that all this should take form as a temporal enactment. On the divine side, this means that God determines himself for fellowship with creatures. He does not need this: his perfect life in the communion of Father, Son, and Spirit suffers no lack. But God loves the creature and so blesses it, and the blessing, quite simply, is his presence, his life with the creature.

 

Let us all be like David who came to the realization that “God’s presence is my good” (Psalm 73:28).

 

~ Romans 11:36


[1] Much of the material to follow is adapted from my favorite theologian, the late John Webster. The source cited is a transcribed edition by David M. Goetz of all six lectures. J B. (John Bainbridge) Webster, “Perfection and Presence - ‘God with US’ According to the Christian Confession,” ed. David M. Goetz (The Kantzer Lectures, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 2007), 49–72, https://henrycenter.tiu.edu/kantzer-lectures-in-revealed-theology/past-lectures- publications/john-webster-perfection-presence/.

[2] Aquinas, ST, Ia.43.3 respondeo





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