Tractatus de Deo uno secundum naturam

God is present to all creatures according to essence, presence and power.

« The divine immensity with the co-signification of existing creatures » is omnipresence; in which the Doctors rightly distinguish three things: that God is intimately present to all creatures by essence, and in many different ways besides by presence and power. »

To complete the doctrine set out in the preceding thesis, here we consider the absolute attribute of immensity according to its relation of reason to what is outside God, or according to the coexistence of things which are in place and space, or which are said to exist in whatever way.

Concerning the coexistence of every place and every space and every creature¹ with God, and in the intimate presence of God, no further difficulty can remain once the divine immensity has been explained in its absolute aspect. For by the very fact that creatures actually exist, God, by reason of his immensity, is necessarily intimately present to them; nor is omnipresence in God, according to its formal concept, anything other than immensity itself with the co-signification of the coexisting creature. The theologians and ascetics, however, are accustomed, with the Master, 1. dist. 37., and with St Thomas, 1. q. 8. a. 3., to distinguish a threefold reason by which God is in all creatures: by essence, presence, and power.

What is principally considered in this distinction is this: that it is declared that God is in all things not merely by some operation—which was the most serious error of some—but that the divine nature and substance itself is everywhere; and then that it is explicitly taught that this existence of God in all things is not as if idle and inert, but is the most active presence of the first cause of all being and of all good. Moreover, not all theologians explain in the same way which distinct reasons and relations they wish to be signified by these names. St Thomas himself explains the matter somewhat differently in his commentary on 1. dist. 37. q. 1. a. 2, and differently in the Summa 1. q. 8. a. 3. The ambiguity is almost wholly in the explanation of what it means to be in all things by presence, as distinguished from the mode of existing in all things by essence and power. The Angelic Doctor explains in the Summa 1. c.: « he is by presence in all things, insofar as all things are bare and open to his eyes; » but in the commentary, 1. c.: « according to this, he says, that he operates in a thing, it is said to be in the thing by presence…. and because the operation does not abandon the divine power from which it proceeds, therefore he is said to be in the thing by power, and because power is the essence itself, it follows that he is in the thing also by essence. »

Thus, insofar as God is considered to be in all things by essence, abstracting from God's operation in the creature, from the manner in which he manifests himself, from the gifts he confers, from the special way by which he elevates the creature and joins it to himself, but considering only the existence of the essence in itself, God is everywhere necessarily and in the same way. With this existence in all things by essence there is the connexion that he is in all things by power, insofar as all things in their whole being, in every perfection, in every act, depend on the conservation and action of God, which moreover is really the divine essence itself, intimately present. Likewise, from his existence in all things by essence it follows that he is in all things by presence: generally indeed as overseer and as « an eye brighter than the sun », holding creatures intimately present to himself, both all and each; but specially God is said to be somewhere and to be in creatures by singular presence, where, the veil being as it were removed, he shows himself present by singular manifestations, by singular gifts both transient and especially permanent, by a singular elevation and conjunction of the creature with himself, especially of the rational creature, to whom he gives himself as it were, and in a special way unites himself as the object of faith, hope, charity, vision and beatific enjoyment.

Hence it is manifest that God is everywhere present by essence, yet not everywhere in the same way present by power and presence. Thus in Scripture God is said to be present in a special way with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, with Moses, Joshua, Gideon, David, Solomon, etc. « I will be with you and bless you; » « fear not, for I am with you » Gen. XXVI. 3. 24; XXXI. 3. 38; Exod. III. 12; Deut. XXXI. 23;. Ios. I. 5. sqq.; Iud. VI. 16; 2. Reg. VII. 3. 9; 3. Reg. XI. 38. Likewise where God manifested himself in singular visions to Jacob, Gen. XXVIII. 17; to Moses, Exod. III. 5, the place is called « the house of God and the gate of heaven, » « holy ground. » In the tabernacle and in the temple God is said to dwell, because he willed that place to be consecrated to himself, so that in it he might manifest himself in a special way both by sensible signs and by hearing prayers, and so that there he might be acknowledged in a special way as present, and worship might be offered to him as present. « Let your eyes be open toward this house day and night, toward the house of which you said, My name shall be there… that you may hear the supplication of your servant and of your people Israel, whatever they shall pray in this place » 3. Reg. VIII. 29. 30. etc. From these things it is also clear how God is in a special way in phenomena and appearances, by which he supernaturally manifests his presence, of which kind there are many in the Old Testament, and in the New the form of a dove over Christ when baptized, tongues of fire over the Apostles, etc. He is said to come to rational souls, to dwell and abide in them when they are sanctified: both because he, present to them intimately by essence, perpetually pours into them and in them conserves and increases the precious gifts of grace and the charisms, by which they are constituted in supernatural likeness to him in adoptive sonship; and because, so sanctified, he presents himself immediately to them as the object of faith, hope and charity. The souls themselves abide in God as the object of paternal knowledge and love, so that he may confer eternal life upon them; and God abides in them as the object of filial knowledge and love, so that a mutual friendship intervenes between them and God. Further, from what has been said there is explained the special presence of God the Holy Spirit, revealing in the prophets and Apostles, assisting and governing in the Church: « The Paraclete with you forever; » « behold I am with you all days » Io. XIV. 16; Matth. XXVIII. 20. In heaven, however, God present manifests himself with unveiled face in all the angels and saints, presenting himself to be seen, loved and enjoyed, as he is, in the fullness of his essence, truth, goodness and beauty, which by one name is called the glory of God. « For though it is not doubted that he is everywhere, says St Bernard (on Ps. Qui habitat, serm. 1. n. 4.), yet he is in heaven in such a way that in comparison with him he seems hardly to be on earth at all. Hence also when we pray we say: Our Father, who art in heaven. For just as the soul, though it is whole in the whole body, is nevertheless more excellently and singularly in the head, in which are all the senses…. wherefore, as regards the manner in which it is in the head, the other members seem in a certain way not so much to dwell in it as to be governed by it: so if we consider that presence in which the blessed angels enjoy him, we seem to have scarcely any protection and name of God at all. « Now the most intimate and sublime presence of all is that of the Word in the human nature of Christ through the hypostatic union, where the Son of God makes the created and visible nature his own, and so, according to the assumed nature, the divine person himself becomes visible: « that which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we have looked upon and our hands have handled of the Word of life: and the life was manifested and we have seen » etc. 1. Io. I. 1. 2.

Hence from all these things it is understood how God, though necessarily present everywhere, is said to approach, come to the creature, or withdraw from it and leave it, and how the second and third persons are understood to be sent to the creature. These things, namely, cannot be understood of presence simply according to essence; but they are understood by reason of this, that God, according to presence and special operation, in the manner declared, begins or ceases to be in the creature; and from this change of either presence or absence, as is clear from what has been often repeated, there arises not in God but in the creature. « Nor is he absent where he is far away; for where he is not present by grace, he is present by vengeance; he touches all things, yet he does not touch all things equally…. and since he is never unlike himself, he touches unlike things in unlike ways » Pope Gregory the Great, in Ezech. l. I. hom. 8. n. 16.

Corollary to the preceding theses. If we compare space and time, which are commonly called imaginary, with the attributes of immensity and eternity of God, it is easily understood that, since both of these are nothing real outside the concept of the mind, the former can be confused with the immensity of God, and the latter with the eternity of God, only absurdly. We form the concept of imaginary space while negatively we abstract from the existence of bodies, or rather from the real existence of every creature, which is limited in the mode of presence, and positively we understand the possibility of bodies and of extension, or of creatures existing, extended without end. But just as God, on account of the absolute perfection of his presence, is subject to no limits of place and of real space; so also he is subject to no limits of this kind, which are merely possible. Therefore, just as God, on account of the eminence of his presence, is nowhere in real space definitively or circumscriptively, but everywhere by simple existence; so, on account of the same exemption from all limiting relations of place, his presence, even in places that are possible, which we can conceive without end, is nowhere and everywhere, although there he is present to no thing, because there no thing exists.

Similarly we form the concept of imaginary time, negatively abstracting from all successions that exist in reality, and positively conceiving continuous successions possible without end. Yet we can conceive none which, if it were to exist in reality, would not necessarily be coexisting with the same eternal and immutable divine duration, with which the real successions of times, which now are, coexist.

From these things it is further understood that the judgement must be corrected, if anyone perhaps imagines God to himself as ever greater and greater, toward the indefinite, whether in immensity or in duration. For immensity is the most simple absolute perfection in the order of presence, always the same, by which God is exempt from every local limitation; and eternity is the most simple absolute permanence, without any possible succession, always the same. But spaces and places, in which the immense God is present, and successions and times which coexist with the eternal God, can be multiplied into the indefinite, without ever arriving at a last term. According to these possible successions, the particles of time before and after, prior and posterior, greater and lesser duration must be explained when they are transferred to that place where there was no time but only divine eternity: as when it is said that the world could have been created sooner or later, and it is asked, « why then rather than before it was made? Just as it can be asked why here rather than where it is, and not elsewhere. » See Augustine's disputation in Civ. Dei XI. 5, whose conclusion is: « if they say that the thoughts of men are empty, by which they imagine infinite places, since there is no place beyond the world, it is answered to them that in this way men vainly think of the past times of God's leisure, since there is no time before the world. »²