God's omnipresence

[doogieduff]

Do people see God's omnipresence as God existing in all places at once, or rather, God having the ability to be anywhere He wishes at any given moment?

If the former, is God in the lake of fire? <-- This doesn't make sense to me.

[mickiel]

Yesterday @ 11:59 PM post located here
doogieduff:

Do people see God's omnipresence as God existing in all places at once, or rather, God having the ability to be anywhere He wishes at any given moment?

If the former, is God in the lake of fire? &lt;-- This doesn't make sense to me.

If its alive God is in it. NOTHING lives without God, independant of or from God, nothing. Everything alive, owes it existance to God. Everything alive CAME from the mind of God, and Gods power must substain it. If God released his gravitional hold on earth, it would be destroyed. God could rotate the earth off of its axes, and catastrophy would ensue. If God withdrew life, nothing can live, if he does not MENTALLY SUBSTAIN LIFE, there would be no life. So if its alive, God is INSIDE of it. Even if something is dead, but the molecues inside of it live, God is still there, a portion of him substains it. Something like a simpe peice of wood, God is in it.

[Kenny]

God is the lake of fire. The lake of fire, as I see it, is simply the presence of God in terms of His all consuming wrath toward sin.

[GrayPilgrim]

Ahhh...we start to see why some of God's attributes are called incomunicable, that it that our finiteness, makes their comprehensibility impossible. God is fully present everywhere, that is his complete self is here in my study as I type this post, just as he is fully present as you read it (please ignore the time differences I am referring to the spatial dimension of things and not the temporal issues.

What do I mean by fully present? I mean he is present in all of his being here and there and everywhere.

My one possible problem with Kenny's formulation is that it borders on the hyper-immanentistic monism of Hegel (as formulated, not necessarily by Kenny's intent [I don't know]). I want to show a rejection of all panentheistic conotations. However, I do agree that God is fully present there, itis just that there we see his righteous wrath poured out upon those who have rejected Him and by this I mean the Full Godhead is presnet here and now in all of his creation, for in Him we live and breath and have our being.

[Kenny]

My one possible problem with Kenny's formulation is that it borders on the hyper-immanentistic monism of Hegel (as formulated, not necessarily by Kenny's intent [I don't know]). I want to show a rejection of all panentheistic conotations.

I certainly intended nothing of the sort. The place in which the wicked reside will be a physical place (since the wicked will be physically resurrected as will the righteous) and as such it will be distinct from God. But, I see the fire itself as merely a metaphor for the presence of God in terms of His wrath.

[Pate]

Yesterday @ 11:59 PM post located here
doogieduff:

Do people see God's omnipresence as God existing in all places at once, or rather, God having the ability to be anywhere He wishes at any given moment?

If the former, is God in the lake of fire? &lt;-- This doesn't make sense to me.

What does it mean if we say that an immaterial entity exists literally somewhere (or everywhere)? Is such an idea even coherent?

I think that omnipresence just means that God has direct causal access to everything that exists in the universe, so that he is "causally present" everywhere, while he literally is not located in space.

[geebob]

Do people see God's omnipresence as God existing in all places at once, or rather, God having the ability to be anywhere He wishes at any given moment?

I'm inclined to believe that he exists everywhere, however, his presence does shift in a sense. See Terrence Fretheim's The Suffering of God (he's an open theist BTW). This is an interesting work in biblical theology which has an interesting discussion on "intensifications" on the presence of God as well as the notion of driving God's presence out (which Frethiem interprets as a de-intensification of his presence).

If the former, is God in the lake of fire? <-- This doesn't make sense to me.

I hold this as the exception. I do hold the typical christian view of hell as the ultimate seperation from God. Though I tend to think that God knows what goes on there, I don't think he is present there.

[Theolog]

Yesterday @ 03:59 PM post located here
doogieduff:

Do people see God's omnipresence as God existing in all places at once, or rather, God having the ability to be anywhere He wishes at any given moment?

If the former, is God in the lake of fire? &lt;-- This doesn't make sense to me.

I think that God’s omnipresence is better defined as Him being conscious of all events that have happened or will ever happen.

Sometimes even our human brains consciousness is expanded beyond the normal average human, some have total recall, or have precognition of events, some easily perceive over to the spiritual dimension. I see no reason not to believe that God’s brain is at the very least beyond ours a few quanta. Perhaps a reasonable comparison would go something like a grain of sand to a galaxy cluster.

Surely God is not like man.

This whole othiest idea of using man as a reference point to determine Gods being seems a little short sighted to me.

If God does not know the future then how does He know He will live forever? Boy! you guys really have gotten God in a pickle now. Should we pray for Him???

Perhaps a little lesson in consciousness expansion would be of benefit to you.

Kenny’s insight into hell sounds sound to me.

The question now is; Is God conscious of beings outside of his prescience? I think that he is not conscious of them because he chooses not to be conscious of them.

[geebob]

I think that God’s omnipresence is better defined as Him being conscious of all events that have happened or will ever happen.

why meld the concept of omnipresence and of omniscience? They are perfectly meaningful as two distinct attributes (albeit still related)

This whole othiest idea of using man as a reference point to determine Gods being seems a little short sighted to me.

Ov'ers generally don't take a rigid distinguishing stance on omnipresence.

If God does not know the future then how does He know He will live forever? Boy! you guys really have gotten God in a pickle now. Should we pray for Him???

God does know the future. He knows it as partly settled and partly open. His everlasting never ending life is part of the settled part.

[darcutm]

Psalms 139:7-8

7 Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?

8 If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.
KJV

Unless God's following you, I would assume this means He's already there and everywhere.

[nomad]

perhaps another way to look at this is: if God is not there, what constitutes it?

i.e. if I look at the current world, and think about what 'in' and 'out' means, they have some sense... i am in my office. my office is part of a building. my building is on a street, part of a city. the city is part of a state, which is part of a country, which is part of a world, which is a part of the universe, etc.

for me to talk about 'in' or 'out', there has to be an 'out' for me to go to. for me to go 'out' of my office, simply means i am going to another part of the building that is not my office. there is something greater than my office that contains my office, yet is not my office.

for example, i cannot go 'out' of the universe, because i only know (even theoretically) how to travel 'in' the universe. i know of nothing (physical at least) which is greater than the universe, such that i could be there, and yet outside this universe.

going back to God, to say that there is somewhere (even a theoretical multi-dimensional or spiritual space) where God is not, implies that there is something greater than God on which God and not-God are arranged, something within which both God and not-God 'hold their being' which is greater than both the God and not-God pieces.

comments?

[darcutm]

:stars:
That would be a never ending cycle to assume that God and not-god reside in another not-god2 which would mean that there is another God2 or not-god3 which would occupy the space of not-god2's absence and so on...

Considering that Psalm 147:5 refers to God as being Infinite and that Psalm 139:7-8 points out the fact that God is already everywhere we are to go would leave me to believe that there is no inifinite God--antiGod dimensions out there....

Now if you'll excuse me, I must take something for my headache

[mickiel]

He is in the air, the land, inside of you. Inside of all the Spirit world, inside of each angel, each of the 24 elders, inside of Christ and inside of everything Christ created. GOD IS INSIDE OF EVERYTHING, therefore there is no where that he is not present. Also God has created EYES, angels that he has created and all they do is watch and look, thats their job. This is what the scripture means when it says "the EYES of the LORD are in every place beholding good and evil", these eyes are specially created beings. All this other written stuff is foolish conjecture.

[darcutm]

2 Chronicles 16:9

9 For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him.
KJV

Although I agree with God being omnipresent, this raises a question to me...Why do the Lord's eyes need to run to and fro if He is everywhere seeing everything?

[themuzicman]

Uh... every heard of anthromoporphism (sp)?

That's the assigning of human attributes to God to speak of Him figuratively.

Happens a lot in the bible.

:Muz: