Thesis.
SECTION VIII: ON THE IMMENSITY OF GOD
Thesis.
§ 171. As God in His nature and essence—in actuality, of Himself, simply, and absolutely—is infinite, so also is He immense [without measure]. Immensity sometimes is taken broadly, sometimes strictly. Taken broadly it is the same in all ways as infinity, signifying that God is of Himself not limited or measured by any place or time nor any other thing, but is by His nature and essence infinite and immense. Taken strictly it differs from infinity as a species differs from its genus, for we set up two species, as it were, of infinity: eternity and immensity. Eternity is the kind of property of God that signifies that He is limited by no time and has neither beginning nor end of existence but always exists whole and simultaneously outside all succession of time. Immensity is the kind of property of God which signifies that He is measured by and circumscribed to no place but penetrates and fills each and every place without the multiplication, extension, inclusion, and division of His own essence.
§ 172. This immensity and essential omnipresence of God must be understood in this way: (1) God is present with all things not only by His might and efficacy nor only by His sight and knowledge but also in His total indivisible essence, for He is also immense and infinite not only in His power and wisdom but also in His essence. “In being, presence, and power, God is here and everywhere” [Enter praesenter Deus hic et ubique potenter]. Thomas, [ST,] part 1, q. 8, art. 3: “God is everywhere through His essence, presence, and power.”
(2) God is present everywhere, not as constrained, so as to be grasped, but as constraining, so as to grasp and contain all things—not as contained and circumscribed but as containing. The Scholastics say that God is everywhere not locally nor in circumscribed fashion in the way a body is in a place, a body that is held and circumscribed by its own corporeal place and is divisible by several parts. He is everywhere not definitively as intelligent forms are everywhere, that is, as angels and souls are in a place or, rather, are in a certain “where,” because they are essences defined by finity. Rather, they teach that He is everywhere repletively, which must nevertheless be understood not in a gross, corporeal manner—as if God filled all places like a body that fills its own place in such a way that it keeps another body from being put in the place it occupies—but in a divine way, because God, closed up in no place, contains all things because of the immensity of His own essence.
(3) God is present everywhere not by a multiplication of His essence, for He is something entirely whole, an utterly simple being. Thus wherever He is, He is there whole. Nor is He present everywhere through a division of His essence, because He is not half in one half of the world but is everywhere whole. Nor is He present everywhere through extension and rarefaction, because He is not a corporeal mass but an infinite essence, incomprehensible might, and unspeakable effectiveness. Nor is He present everywhere through a mixing [with other things], because He is an utterly simple and indivisible essence, coming into composition with nothing.
(4) God is present everywhere with His own essence not subjectively, as an accident clings to its subject—because God is not composite nor can He come into compounding, and as the notion of eternity excludes time, so the notion of immensity excludes place as occupying a subject—but effectively, as a principle and cause are present with the thing they cause. For God is not contained by place; rather, it is He who gives His own being to a place and to the things that are in the place.
** God is present with His creatures: (1) Without expansion, diffusion, or multiplication of essence but with the infinity of His simple essence. (2) Without inclusion. Augustine, De div. quaest., q. 20: “All things are rather in Him than He is anywhere; yet they are not in Him in such a way that He Himself is a place.” (3) Without emanation or spreading out from Himself as also without corporeal emission of some power that would flow out from Him. **
His presence is: (α) not local; (β) indivisible; (γ) incomprehensible to our reason; (δ) effective and full of action; (ε) containing in Himself all things like the tiniest point.
Arguments that affirm the immensity of God.
§ 173. The immensity of the divine essence and the essential omnipresence of God is proved from: (I) Scripture and, in fact, (1) affirmatively, when He is said to be present everywhere. Josh. 2:11: “Jehovah, your God, is the God who is in heaven above and on earth beneath.” Ps. 139:7–10: “Whither shall I go from Your Spirit? Or whither shall I flee from Your face? If I ascend to heaven, 
You [are] there. If I make my bed in hell, 
behold You [are there]. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea (the west), even there Your hand will lead me and Your right hand will hold me.” (The royal psalmist is comparing places especially opposed to each other, sets God as present in them, and also leaves it to be understood that He is present in the places between.) Jer. 23:24: “Will someone hide himself in secret places and I shall not see him? says the Lord.” This is the presence of His vision and wisdom according to which “all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of God” (Heb. 4:13); however, that no one may think that God is omnipresent with respect only to His wisdom and vision, therefore we have the addition: “Do not I 
fill the heavens and the earth? says the Lord.” Amos 9:2–3: “Although they dig into Sheol, from there will My hand take them; though they climb up to heaven, from there I shall bring them down. Although they hide themselves on the top of Carmel, from there I shall search out and take them; and though they hide themselves from My sight at the bottom of the sea, there I shall command the serpent and it will bite them.” Acts 17:28: “In God we live and move and are.”
(2) Negatively, when it denies that He is closed in and included in a certain place. 1 Kings 8:27: “Will God indeed dwell on the earth? (namely, as to be contained by the world as a man is contained in the dwelling place of his house). Behold, heaven and the highest heaven do not contain You (in Hebrew the verb 
is in the Piel: 
, “included”), how much less this house that I have built!” The same thing is repeated in 2 Chron. 2:6; 6:18. Jer. 23:23: “ ‘Am I a God at hand 
?’ said the Lord, ‘and not a God afar off 
?’ ” Acts 7:48; 17:24: “The Most High does not dwell in temples made with hands.” Acts 17:27: “He is not far from each one of us.”
(3) Symbolically. Isa. 66:1; Acts 7:49: “Heaven is My home and the earth My footstool. Where will the house be that you will build for Me, and where will be the place of My rest?”
§ 174. (II) Rational arguments. (1) From the simplicity of the divine essence. Whatever is absolutely simple, that does not have a part outside the part [partem extra partem]. Whatever does not have a part outside the part is everywhere whole. Whatever is everywhere whole is omnipresent. Therefore because God is utterly simple, He is everywhere whole. God is pure act and, therefore, is completely indivisible. Therefore He is whole and undivided in everything and in every part of every thing.
(2) From His infinity. Whatever is infinite and immense in its essence is also present everywhere. Otherwise it would be bounded and limited by place. God is infinite in His own essence. Therefore.
(3) From His power to operate. (See Thomas, [ST,] part 1, q. 8, art. 1.) Every agent ought to be joined to that upon which it is immediately acting. (Take this to mean the sort of acting that works immediately, without the mediation of might and addition [suppositum].) An agent is said to work without the mediation of might when it acts with its own might, which is not begged from elsewhere. An agent is said to work without the mediation of addition when it works without any cause interposed between the agent and that upon which it acts. However, God is the immediate cause of the innermost being of all created things, not only when they begin to be but also so long as they are preserved in their being. Therefore He is intimately present to all things. Savonarola, De verit. fid., bk. 1, c. 8:
Because God is the first and universal cause of all things and is pure act, it is also necessary for His own being that every other produced being be His proper effect—as being kindled is the proper effect of fire. And because God is the cause of all things, it is necessary that God Himself be present not only in their becoming but also in their being, not only in their first beginning but also as long as they are preserved in their existence. Furthermore, because the being of each thing is intensely intimate, for it is formal with respect to all things that are in the thing, we must affirm that God is intensely intimate in all things.
§ 175. (III) The judgments of the fathers are added. In De monarch., p. 82, Justin Martyr cites the verses of Orpheus: “For this one has been established above the copper sky, upon a golden throne. He has trodden the earth with His feet, and His right hand He has stretched out all around the boundary of Ocean.”
Athenagoras, Orat. pro Christ.: “We know, however, that God is present (not only in all our deeds but also) in all our thoughts and words by night and day and that He and His entire being are the light that sees what is hidden in our hearts.”
Cyprian, De vanit. idol.: “The whole world is the temple of God.” Also: “God entire is spread out everywhere.”
Hilary, De Trinit., bk. 1, f. 3: “No place is without nor is any place not in God. He is in the heavens, He is in hell, He is beyond the seas. He is inside, interior; He exceeds, exterior. Thus when He holds and is held, He is neither in a place nor is He not in all places.” F. 4: “The entire God Himself encompasses all things within and outside Himself, so that the Infinite is neither absent from all things nor are all things not in Him who is infinite.” On Psalm 138: “It is a wondrous thing that God is everywhere and absent from no place, that He is in all things and in them whole, that He is always outside places and times because of His infinity and eternity.”
Jerome, on Isaiah 66: “How will He who fills all things be encompassed in a small place?”
Chrysostom, homily 5 on Colossians 2, teaches: “We must believe with a certain faith that God is everywhere.” Chrysostom again, homily 1, De incompr. Dei nat.: “I know that God is everywhere and whole in every part of the world, but how He is there I do not know.” Homily 3: “God is said to be everywhere, because He is absent from no part of things. He is said to be everywhere whole, because He does not provide part of His presence to a part of things or one part to one thing and another part to another, but an equal part to equal things. He is present whole and equally not only to the entirety of His creation but also to every part thereof.”
Ambrose, on Ephesians 3: “A sphere is encompassed in a definite way, but God not only fills all things but also exceeds them, for He is not closed in but has all things within Himself, so that He alone is considered ineffable and infinite.”
The author of the book De cogn. verae vitae, c. 7, p. 403: “God is eternity itself and contains within Himself all creation like a tiny dot.” Augustine, De civ. Dei, bk. 7, c. 30: “The same God is whole everywhere, encompassed in no space, bound by no chains, divided in no part, changeable in no part, filling heaven and earth with His present power, His nature not being absent.” De civ. Dei, bk. 10, c. 4: “God is not greater in all things than He is in individual things because He is not enlarged by mass nor diminished by divisions.” Manual., c. 2: “O Lord, we do not say that You fill all things in such a way that they contain You; rather, they are encompassed by You. You do not fill all things piece by piece, nor should we by any means imagine that each thing holds You in proportion to its size (that is, that the largest thing has more of You and the smallest thing less), because You Yourself are in all things and all things are in You.” De Genes. ad lit., bk. 2, c. 26, p. 251: “God is within every thing because all things are in Him, and He is outside every thing because He is above all things.” (We have cited more passages of Augustine in our Commonplaces [1610 Loci Theologici, locus 3 (On the Nature of God)], § 111.)
John of Damascus, Orth. fid., bk. 1, c. 16: “Because God is not material, He also is not circumscribed by place, for He is His own place, filling all things, and being above all things, and holding all things together. He also is said to be in a place; and wherever His activity [
] becomes evident, that is called the ‘place of God.’ ” C. 18: “All things are distant from God not by place but by nature.”
Alcuin, De Trinit., bk. 2, c. 4: “We do not say that God fills all things in such a way that they contain Him; rather, they are encompassed by Him. He does not fill all things piece by piece nor should we by any means imagine that each thing holds Him in proportion to its size (that is, that the largest thing has more of Him, the smallest less) because, on the contrary, He is whole in all things or all things are in Him whose omnipotence encompasses all things.” And later: “The immensity of God’s size is such that we understand Him to be in all things but not closed up within them. We understand Him to be within them in such a way that He contains all things and outside them in such a way that He excludes all things by the immensity of His uncircumscribed greatness. Therefore by being outside them, He is revealed to be their Creator; by being within them, He is shown to govern all things.” In the same book, c. 7, a Christian philosopher asks him where God is, and he is said to have answered with great keenness: “Tell me, first, O philosopher, where God is not.” (See more of this sort of thing in Athanasius, Orat. contra idola, past the middle; Contra gregales Sabellii, p. 94; Nazianzen, Orat. 34, which is the second on theology, etc.; Macarius, homily 12, p. 156; and Augustine, De civ. Dei, bk. 1, c. 29.)
However, even the rabbinic scholars and the more sound philosophers claim a divine omnipresence. We cite the saying of Rabbi Moses: “If it were possible to put a man on the top of the ninth heaven, he would be neither closer to nor farther from God than one who is placed in the center of the earth.” Hermes Trismegistus says: “God is an intellectual sphere whose center is everywhere but whose circumference is nowhere.” In Analect. ad Oppiani
, bk. 2, v. 8, p. 222, Rittershusius proves that the doctrine of the omnipresence of God could have touched even the blind eyes of the heathen with the radiant beam of its light. (Be sure to see Stephanus Theupolus, Academ. contempl., bk. 1, c. 8.)
Antithesis.
§ 176. In error here are: (I) The Manichaeans, who say that the nature of good—God—was mixed with the coeternal nature of evil and who assert that the substance of God is mixed into the whole world, etc. (See Augustine, De haeres. ad Quodvultd., c. 46.) That is, they have imagined that God is omnipresent in such a way that He entered into composition with created things. The absolute simplicity and immutability of God must be set against this error. Epiphanius, Contra Dimeritas: “God is not mixed with anything because of His incommunicable and incomparable being.”
(II) The Jews, about whom Jerome writes, on Isaiah 66: “They think that the invisible, incorporeal, and incomprehensible God can be closed up in the temple at Jerusalem.”
(III) Vorstius, who in many ways undermines the immensity and essential omnipresence of God. (1) He asserts that the immensity of His essence is listed among those things that are called simply impossible and that it consequently denotes no perfection. He writes: “For the controversy does not lack this issue, that here it is assumed as certain that God’s essence is completely and simply immense” (De Deo et attrib., p. 214). p. 232: “Nowhere is it taught clearly in Scripture that God is substantially present everywhere and, therefore, simply is infinite. Nowhere do we read it written that God has a simply immense substance and that He is whole and actually present in all places. In fact, we encounter everywhere not a few passages that appear to have an opposite idea.” On p. 234 and preceding p. 233, after examining the statements of Scripture that theologians usually cite to establish the substantial infinity and omnipresence of God, Vorstius concludes: “From this it is clear from Scripture that the immensity or ubiquity of the divine essence cannot be proved solidly unless other testimonies are provided or the arguments that have been brought forth are formed differently than has been done up to now.” Nevertheless Vorstius does not provide other testimony nor does he show how arguments from the things cited are to be formed differently. Because of this, it follows quickly that, according to the opinion of Vorstius, the immensity of the divine essence cannot be proved from Scripture.
(2) He asserts that God is present everywhere, not in essence but only in might and efficacy. De attrib., p. 235: “It is indeed true that God works all things in all things, but it does not follow that God is there immediately with His substance and that He is working everywhere, because He can work through mediating causes, either natural or supernatural, like a king through his ministers.”
(3) Vorstius claims that God is nowhere but in heaven according to substance. He writes: “In substance He resides in the loftiest heaven as on a throne or in a palace, yet in such a way that according to His might and working He also dwells on earth” (De attrib., p. 233). p. 235: “It surely appears to be affirmed in Scripture that with respect to substance God is only in heaven.” After citing several passages of Scripture, Vorstius adds: “Let us simply believe that all Holy Writ teaches that God in essence (which, as it is most full and great and, with respect to us, immense, thus at the same time is supremely glorious) actually dwells in the loftiest and most spacious part of heaven, but that He is present with us everywhere on earth with His might and wisdom, or with His effective operation and providence” (p. 237).
(4) Vorstius denies that the essence of God is whole in any small thing but asserts that He is in it according to some part of Himself. Consequently, Vorstius makes God’s essence divisible. He writes: “It appears to be a strange paradox that God lacks all quantity in such a way that He is substantially whole in any thing, even the tiniest” (p. 240). Consequently, Vorstius also argues that the rational soul is spread through all parts of the body by might and operation, but that its essence is contained in some one definite place, namely, either in the heart or in the brain (p. 241). He says: “If the entire soul were in the head and in the feet, it would be outside of itself, because the feet and head are far from each other.” We respond. This does not follow, that it is outside itself, because it is entirely whole. Instead, it is in those parts, one of which is outside the other. (See Brokerus, Antidot., c. 8, p. 24.)
(5) Vorstius writes: “It seems to be unworthy of God’s majesty that His whole essence is said to be present in an anthill or in filthy places” (p. 237). Yet if it was not undignified of God to create the most insignificant and abject things, surely it will not be undignified of Him to be present with them and to preserve them. If the visible and corporeal sun casts its rays upon filthy places and is not befouled thereby, why should we be afraid that the invisible, noncorporeal, and uncreated Sun might contract a stain from its essential presence in filthy places? (See Augustine, De natur. bon., c. 29; and Hugh of St. Victor, De sacram., bk. 1, part 3, c. 17, where he declares by example of the rational soul: “When it is united with an ill and leprous body, it is not infected from it.”) Yet on the basis of these statements, we can effectively convict Vorstius of atheism for denying the essential omnipresence of God. In the assembly of orders [consessu ordinum] in Holland, he solemnly swore that he “had never denied God’s essential omnipresence,” but at the same moment, he said: “God is not in human wastes, sewers, or filthy places with His essence” (Orat. apolog., p. 18). But whoever is not present in human wastes, sewers, and filthy places with His essence is not present with His essence somewhere. And He who is not present with His essence somewhere is not present with His essence everywhere. Also, if God is not present with His essence in filthy places, He will be present essentially in no human body, for what else is the human body but a filthy dung heap? (See Sibrandus Lubbertus, preface to his Comment. ad 99. err. Vorst.)
(6) Thereby he attributes to God place and local presence in his treatise De Deo, p. 235. On p. 239 he writes: “It certainly appears that we should have no doubt that place and local presence can truly and correctly be attributed to God.” (See Apolog. exeg., c. 19, pp. 99, 103.)
All of these arguments aim to deny the mystery of the personal union of the two natures in Christ. If God according to His substance is nowhere else but in heaven, then when Christ was on earth in His assumed flesh, He was not the true and essential God. If God according to His essence is not in filthy places, He will not be present with an infant in His mother’s womb, which in fact lies hidden in the waste and urine of the female abdomen. If He is essentially present with no infant as long as it is cared for in its mother’s womb, then He was not with Christ in Mary’s womb. If the entire essence of God is not in any tiny thing, surely it will not be whole in the assumed humanity because in that respect it is the least thing of the entire universe.
Vorstius sees this, and therefore in the Apol. exeg., c. 17, p. 87, he turns aside from this: “The union of the two natures in Christ formally do not exist in the essential nondistance of the two natures but in some arcane and indescribable flowing of the deity of the Word into the humanity. That is, it actually exists by a unique operation of the former toward the latter or by the gracious assumption and peculiar appropriation of the latter to the former (the mode of which is incomprehensible to us in this life).” p. 88: “Someone might correctly conclude that even the divine hypostasis of the Word could have been communicated to the assumed humanity by some secret inflowing and that the latter is still sustained permanently through the inner might of the former, even if by chance there is no local conjunction between the two substances.” On p. 89 Vorstius concludes: “In some measure it can be left in doubt whether God dwelt with His substance in Christ the man when He walked on earth.” Blessed Luther has already given a thorough refutation of this Nestorian error, which claims a personal union in the mere carrying and transforms it from a primary actuality to a secondary actuality41 (vol. 2, Wittenberg edition, p. 228).42 The holy fathers say that this union took place 
[“continually (or indivisibly) and inseparably”]. We shall debate this subject in greater detail in its own place.
§ 177. If you ask what new arguments Vorstius uses to try to lend credence to these paradoxes, you hear nothing else but the dreams of human reason to which (to say it gracefully) some statements of Scripture are applied poorly. (1) He says: “God is said to dwell in the heavens (Ps. 122:1; 103:19). When people intend to pray to Him, they lift up their hearts, eyes, and hands in that direction. Therefore He is not present everywhere essentially.”
Some make the distinction that heaven can be taken (α) as a created throne, (β) as an uncreated throne. God does not dwell on a created throne simply and absolutely, as if encompassed by it, but comparatively, (a) by way of manifestation (
), because He reveals His majesty more excellently in it; and (b) by way of our conception (
), because heaven is loftier than all earthly creatures.
We respond simply that more is inferred in the consequence than the antecedent permits. Scripture does declare that God is and dwells in the heavens, but nowhere does it add that He dwells only in the heavens; rather, it bears an opposite witness. Thus we must not deny His presence on earth because of the essence of God in the heavens, but must distinguish the levels and modes of that presence. God is in heaven through majesty and glory, in hell through justice and avenging wrath, in the Church through the presence of grace, in the world through the presence of power, in Christ through the hypostatic union, etc. God is everywhere according to His essence. He is said to dwell in heaven with respect to His greater majesty and glory. In this way the entire soul is in the entire body; yet it is in the heart originally [radicaliter] and in the head effectively because it produces quite excellent effects.
** Athanasius, Contra gregales Sabellii, vol. 1, f. 517: “When the psalmist says, ‘The heavens are the Lord’s heavens’ (Ps. 115:16), he is not assigning heaven to the Lord as the place of His residence and earth to humans, but is subjecting God’s excellence and magnificence to the eyes.” **
Bernard, Medit., c. 11, col. 1189: “God in Himself is incomprehensible because He is beginning and end, beginning without beginning, end without end. In the angels He is desirable, because they desire to look upon Him. In the saints He is delightful, because they constantly rejoice and are happy in Him. In creatures He is admirable, because He creates all things powerfully, governs them wisely, and manages them kindly. In humans He is lovable, because He is their God and they are His people.”
Therefore we lift our eyes to heaven when we are about to pray not because we claim that God is closed up in the regions of heaven but because we acknowledge that God in His essence is distinct from all sublunar creatures, from all visible, physical, and created things; because He reveals His divine majesty especially in heaven; because He has prepared for us a home in heaven to which we aspire with all the desire of our heart. Whoever looks upon the face of a king while he speaks does not for that reason address only the eyes or head of the king, but the king himself. So in our prayers we lift our eyes to heaven but still are not claiming that God is enclosed there alone because we have learned from the prophet that “heaven is God’s throne, but the earth is His footstool” [Isa. 66:1]. Alcuin, De Trinit., bk. 2, c. 5:
As a sinner is called “dust” when it is said of him: “Dust you are and to dust you will return,” so, on the contrary, the Righteous One can be called “heaven,” for it is said to the righteous: “The temple of God is holy, which you are.” Therefore if God dwells in His temple because the saints are His temple, it is correct to say, “Who art in heaven,” that is, in the saints. And that comparison is very suitable, as there appears to be as much of a difference spiritually between the righteous and sinners as there is corporeally between heaven and earth.
And later: “Therefore God is said to dwell in the heavens, because in the heavens there is a greater knowledge of His supreme majesty and essence—among the angels or the holy souls of the saints—than there is among the saints who dwell on earth, because of the weight of their fleshly habitation.”
(2) He says: “God is said to ascend and descend (Gen. 11:7, etc.).” We respond. God does not depart or return by a change of place or of His essence but by a declaration of mercy and righteousness. Origen, homily 4 on Genesis, vol. 1, p. 22: “God is said to descend when He deigns to have a care for human frailty.” Chrysostom, homily 40, on Genesis 35: “To descend and ascend are unworthy of God but are the greatest token of His ineffable mercy, because He deigns to use such language for our instruction.” Augustine, epistle 3, to Volusian: “He knows how to be everywhere whole and to be contained by no place. He knows how to come not by leaving where He was and how to go away without leaving where He had come. The human mind wonders at this and perhaps does not believe it because it cannot grasp it.” De civ. Dei, bk. 16, c. 5: “God, who is always everywhere whole, does not move in place. Rather, He is said to descend whenever He does something on earth contrary to the usual course of nature in such a way as to reveal His presence in some way. ‘The mouth of the Lord’ indicates His power to command; His ‘arm’ indicates His might; His ‘eyes’ indicate His omniscient providence. We say that He sits because of His authority, that He stands because of His invincible strength, that He descends because of a manifestation of His presence.” (Also see Augustine on Psalm 136.) Luther, on Genesis 11: “God descends not actually nor substantially, for He is everywhere, but in His action. He stops hiding, He stops being long-suffering, and He begins to reveal sin, to punish and rebuke it.”
(3) Vorstius says: “God is not with the wicked (Num. 14:42). Therefore He is not everywhere.” We respond. It denies that He is with the wicked not simply nor according to His essence but in a certain manner, with respect to His favor and grace in victory over their enemies and in granting other blessings. He sustains and preserves the wicked and the devout through His omnipotent essence but dwells only in the devout through His saving grace. For this reason they are said to be His temples.
§ 178. Vorstius twists badly the passages of Scripture that prove God’s essential omnipresence. On the passage 1 Kings 8:[27] he makes the exception that “it appears we should understand this as referring not to God’s substance but to His might and to the revelation of His providence.” But the very sound of the words and entire context show the opposite. It says: “The heavens of heavens do not contain You; how much less this house that I have built!” The argument of the wise king is this: He whom the heavens of heavens do not contain must not be thought to dwell in a house made with hands on earth in such a way that He is enclosed in it. But the heavens of heavens do not contain God. Therefore. If you imagine that these words of Solomon refer to God’s might and the revelation of His providence, all the power of the logical sequence in the major premise will be ruined. For nothing prevents Him from being enclosed in some house or place whose providence alone extends to all things without any infinity or immensity of essence, just as the power and authority of an earthly ruler extends throughout his entire realm but he himself is contained within a royal court.
On the words of Jer. 23:24 he makes the exception: (1) “One cannot conclude the immensity of His essence from that filling of heaven and earth, because heaven and earth are finite bodies.” We respond. God is not said simply to be in heaven and on earth; all the less is He said to be only in heaven and on earth. Rather, it says emphatically that He fills heaven and earth, namely, with the majesty of His divinity and presence. Lest someone should think, however, that God fills heaven and earth in such a way that His essence is limited by the boundaries of heaven and earth, therefore we must add from Job 11:8 that “He is higher than heaven … deeper than hell … longer than the earth and broader than the sea” and from 1 Kings 8:[27] that “the heavens of heavens do not contain Him.” But surely they would contain Him if His essential presence were encompassed by the boundaries of heaven and earth.
(2) He makes the exception: “If we were to conclude the omnipresence of the divine essence from that passage of the prophet, we surely also could conclude on the basis of Eph. 4:8 Christ’s omnipresence according to His human nature,” which seems absurd to him. We respond. This is an utterly true conclusion and is tied to no absurdity except within the circle of human reason. For as in the prophet, from the fact that God fills heaven and earth, we conclude that He is not a God far away and that nothing is hidden from His eyes, so also in the apostle, from the fact that Christ is raised to the right hand of the Father and fills all things, we infer that He gives to His Church pastors, teachers and that He rules, protects, and defends it.
To the words of Acts 17:27 he makes the exception: “It is not a consequence that wherever God works He is immediately present there in His substance, because He can work through natural or supernatural causes, such as angels, as a king works through his ministers.” We respond. The apostle is teaching from the works of creation, preservation, and governing that one can search out and find God but cannot touch Him with hands. He adds this reason: “For He is not far from each one of us, for in Him we live and move and are.” That is, God did not abandon His workmanship after creation in the way an architect leaves after building a house. Rather, He still preserves and governs what He first created and is perpetually present with His workmanship. If you claim that the substantial nearness of God has been removed from that governing of all things, the logical sequence in the apostle’s argument will not stand. Therefore though in the preservation and governing of all things God uses mediating causes, nevertheless those causes, in their being and acting, depend on God. Without His sustaining power, they would neither exist nor act but would fall into nothingness (Heb. 1:3). Therefore as God was immediately present with those things in creation, so also He is immediately present with them in their preservation because preservation is nothing else but the continuation of their existence. In this way God gives us natural life through our parents, spiritual life through ministers of the Word, yet the formation of a human in the womb (Job 10:8) and the regeneration of the same (1 Pet. 1:3) are attributed to Him. In fact, God does not work this through an addition to His essence but through His power, which is His very essence. Therefore He does not work in His creatures being absent, but being truly and essentially present.
§ 179. (IV) The Calvinists are in error here: (1) When some of them deny that God is present to all creatures with His essence. In part 2, Conv. Prutenicae, p. 497, Crocius asserts that people falsely attribute to the Calvinists that they deny the immensity of the divine essence. However, this is denied by Beza (vol. 1, Oper., p. 589; vol. 3, p. 120), Daneau (De elench. haeret., f. 119; Explic. orat. Domin., f. 96), Johann Pincier (treatise 4, De sacr., bk. 2, De coen. Domin., pp. 370–71). We have cited their words in De glor. Dei, disp. 5, § 16. Episcopius writes: “We do not believe that it is absolutely necessary to know the things that are argued concerning the modes of divine immensity and the omnipresence of His essence” (Disp. priv. de Deo, thesis 10). Slatius, epistle of March 9 and of June 30, 1608: “I see that the perfection of the things of this world lies in this: that they are extended further by His power than by His essence. This perfection they undoubtedly have from God, who has created them in His image. Yet I think that God becomes more perfect when He is said to be able to work, to see, or to hear where His essence is not, than when it is said that the presence of His essence is required to do the work, to see, or to hear.”
(2) When they claim that the right hand of God, to which Christ is raised in His exaltation, is a definite place in heaven. (See Beza, vol. 1, Oper., p. 601; Bullinger, Tract. de verb. coenae; and Piscator, Sch. 1 Pet 3:22.) When their words on this passage have been seen, this is what we infer from them: Those who teach that God dwells in heaven as in a definite place, that the right hand of God indicates a definite place in heaven, that Christ sits at God’s right hand as in a place that is to the right of God, that God’s throne is in heaven as in a place, and that God’s dwelling place is a definite place in heaven cannot have a correct understanding of God’s immensity. The Calvinists do this. Therefore.
Against this error we set forth the description of God’s right hand as this description is given in Scripture. It is the “right hand of His majesty” (Heb. 1:3), “the throne of the majesty in heaven” (Heb. 8:1), “the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb. 12:2), “the throne of glory” (Matt. 25:31), “the right hand of power” (Matt. 26:64; Luke 22:69), “which acts mightily” (Ps. 118:16), “being able to change all things” (Ps. 77:[10]), “present everywhere” (Ps. 139:10), etc. From these and similar passages the following definition for the right hand of God is drawn: It is the infinite power of God and His very present majesty that governs and controls all things in heaven and on earth. Basil says it beautifully: “The word ‘right’ does not mean some inferior place but only a place of equality, because ‘right’ is not taken corporeally with reference to God. For according to that mode, something ‘left’ [sinistrum] could perhaps also be in God” (De SS. ad Amphiloch., f. 206).
(3) When they define the omnipresence of God by a mere nondistance without activity. Ph. Caesar, disp. 2, Apolog., thesis 70: “The omnipresence of God, as it is distinguished not only from God’s infinity but also from His omnipotence, is that by which He is present to all His creatures nondistantly.” Thesis 74: “Action is not denoted but connoted by ‘presence.’ ” Stein of Kassel makes the same claim. But all levels of God’s presence include operation, and the separation of operation from God’s presence is disproved by Musculus himself (Loci, p. 820) and Zanchi (De nat. Dei, bk. 2, c. 6, p. 116; bk. 5, c. 1, p. 531).
§ 180. (V) The Photinians are also in error. They, too, deny that God is essentially present everywhere. Schmalz, Contra disp. 1. D. Frantz., p. 4: “There is no such essence and presence of God in all places, as Frantz imagines, for it is not said in vain that God is in the heavens.” Contra disp. 3. D. Frantz., p. 75: “God is said to be everywhere to the extent that He is present with everyone with His favor.” p. 339: “We affirm the omnipresence of God and also of Christ, but only the sort of omnipresence that Scripture presents, namely, that which concerns their might, favor, and aid.” Pisecius, Resp. ad 2. rationem Camp., p. 24: “Scripture bears witness that the infinite might of God permeates all things, but not His essence. If we concede His infinity, the entire mechanism of the world that we see would be a sort of divine body. And thus according to Lucan, bk. 8: ‘Jupiter is everything you see, wherever you move.’ ” But if one is permitted to draw this inference—God is present in all things; therefore all things are God—then one will also be permitted to draw this inference from the Photinians’ hypothesis: God is essentially in heaven; therefore heaven is God.
In this matter, they follow their leader Socinus, who writes: “The words of the apostle ‘He is not far from any one of us’ pertain solely to those who lead a holy life. He explains that we live in God in such a way that we have life from Him” (Praelect., c. 2, p. 6). (But the apostle’s aim and the continuity of context militate against this. The aim is that the apostle wants to prove that even the Gentiles who are outside the Church can know God in a certain way from the work of creation. In place of an argument, he cites the statement that God is not far from each of us. If you restrict these words, however, only to those who lead a holy life in the Church, you destroy the force of the apostle’s argument. If one asserts that living in God is nothing else but to have life from God, the benefits of God listed in v. 26 are being confused with omnipresence itself, vv. 27–28. That is, the effect is being put in the place of the cause.)
Socinus writes: “God is not with us through His divine nature nor essence but through His might, favor, and aid. Otherwise He would be no more with the devout than with the wicked” (Adv. Franc. Dav. de invoc. Christi, c. 14). (But different levels of presence should not be confused. God is present with the devout and wicked through preservation, but is especially present with the devout through His gracious indwelling.) The Photinians’ goal in arguing such points is clear from what we said earlier, namely, to subvert the mystery of the Trinity and of the incarnation.
Questions regarding God’s omnipresence.
§ 181. (I) The question arises: Is omnipresence completely the same as the immensity of the divine essence? We respond. Omnipresence can be taken in two ways: (1) originally [radicaliter], as it has respect to God Himself, who is infinite and immense in essence. (2) Relatively, as it has respect to the creatures with whom God is present in order to preserve and govern them. God’s presence is never idle, but as God is utterly effective act so also His presence always has some operation connected with it. In the first way omnipresence is completely one with the immensity of the divine essence. For God is omnipresent because He is infinite and immense with respect to both His essence and power. In the second way it is distinguished from the immensity of His essence and indicates the effective action of God joined together with that presence, rather than the absolute attribute of God.
Every essential attribute of God is (a) absolute, as the very essence of God; (b) eternal; (c) that through which God is to Himself what He is; (d) unchangeable and without levels. However, omnipresence is not that kind of essential attribute of God: (α) Because it is not absolutely the very essence of God but is the utterly powerful action by which God is present with all His creatures and preserves and governs them most powerfully. (β) It does not belong to God from eternity, because it has respect to creatures produced in time. (γ) Through it God is not that which He is, because that relationship by which God is said to be omnipresent (that is, present with all things) began in time no less than did creation itself, for God could not have been called omnipresent before created things were brought forth. (δ) Omnipresence is not immobile and immutable in the same way as the immensity of the divine essence, that is, the immense essence of God itself. Rather, it began in time and has its own definite levels.
§ 182. (II) The question arises: Is the cause of omnipresence only and uniquely the immensity of the divine nature? The Calvinists answer affirmatively to make their point that Christ, according to His human nature, is not omnipresent because the human nature is neither infinite nor immense [i.e., without measure]. Polanus, System., bk. 2, c. 12, p. 146: “The only and unique cause of omnipresence and ubiquity is the immensity and infinity of essence. Therefore whatever is everywhere is everywhere because it has an immense and infinite essence. Nothing is everywhere nor can be said to be everywhere unless it is immense. This we must hold against the Ubiquitarians, who argue that Christ’s body is everywhere. However, that body is by no means everywhere, because it does not have an immense and infinite essence.” The Jesuits press the same thing. Becanus, part 1, Theol. schol., c. 6, q. 3: “No creature can be everywhere through God’s immensity, which is contrary to the Ubiquitarians, who think that the humanity of Christ is everywhere through the immensity of God formally communicated to Him.”
We respond. Whatever is omnipresent naturally and essentially (that is, by its own nature and essence), that has an immense and infinite essence. But now we do not say that Christ as man is omnipresent naturally and essentially nor through His own nature and essence, but personally, that is, insofar as His assumed human nature is raised up into the infinite hypostasis of the Word and is placed at the right hand of the heavenly Father in its exaltation. Therefore the immensity and infinity of the human nature are not required for the omnipresence of Christ the man.
If you should say that this is begging the question [
], then we shall have to produce all the statements of Scripture and arguments [momenta rationum] with which we prove that Christ, according to both natures, is present in heaven and earth and governs all things. For example: (1) From the divine promise (Matt. 18:20; 28:20). (2) From the personal union of the divine and human natures, indivisibly and inseparably, which cannot be disconnected by intervals and distances of places. (3) From the dwelling of the whole fullness of the Word in the assumed flesh (Col. 2:9). (4) From the ascension through which Christ as man was made “higher than the heavens” (Heb. 7:26) and “ascended above all the heavens” (Eph. 4:10). And (5) from that which followed immediately, His sitting at the right hand of the Father. Because this right hand of the Father is everywhere present, enclosed in no place, included in nothing, and excluded from nothing, surely also Christ, who was raised up to it, will be omnipresent. (6) From invocation. Ps. 145:18: “The Lord is near to all who call upon Him.” But now we are to call upon and glorify Christ according to both natures. (7) From the subjection of all things to Christ (1 Cor. 15:27; Eph. 1:22; Heb. 2:8). Surely, then, all places are also subject to Him. (8) From His filling all things, which followed His ascension and sitting at the right hand of God (Eph. 4:10). (9) From His dominion. Christ as God and man has dominion over all creatures without being absent because the dominion by which He holds sway as God and man is one. But now according to His divine nature He has dominion without being absent but by being present. (10) From proportion. Christ is the head of His Body, the Church (Eph. 1:22; 5:23; Col. 1:18). But now the head is not pulled away and separated from the limbs through intervals of place but is united intimately with them. (11) From the institution and administration of the Eucharist, for in it Christ distributes His body and blood by means of the blessed bread and wine and thereby proves His presence on earth according to His human nature with an obvious testimony. (12) From the execution of His office. The names of His office apply to Christ according to His human nature. To be present, to rule the Church, to have dominion in the midst of His enemies—these are the names of His office, namely, His royal office. Therefore. (13) From Christ’s appearance on earth. On the way to Damascus, Paul saw Christ: “The Lord stood by him” (Acts 9:27; see also Acts 23:11; 2 Tim. 4:17). From these appearances he proves Christ’s resurrection (1 Cor. 15:8). (14) From the prefiguration of the type. An antitype should correspond to a type. But now Christ walks “in the midst of the golden lampstands” (Rev. 1:13)—that is, in the midst of the churches—and His members are described (eyes, head, hair, feet, right hand, etc.) lest anyone relate this to the presence of the divine nature alone.
To these foundations of ours (which must not be torn apart but all united, for we are demonstrating that He can be present with all creatures on the basis of the personal union and the indwelling of the whole fullness of the Word in the assumed flesh, and we are demonstrating that He wills to do this on the basis of the other foundations), I say, Polanus should respond to these foundations of ours in an orderly and solid fashion before he accuses the Ubiquitarians, as he calls them, of error in this chapter of heavenly doctrine.
Concerning those things that are cited against our position, their explanation belongs to another place, and they are easily resolved if it is considered that we by no means claim that Christ as man is essentially omnipresent. Instead, we claim that He is personally omnipresent, that is, not through and because of an immensity of His human essence but because of its utterly pure union with the Word and its exaltation to the right hand of God, which is contained by no inclusion of place. Therefore as the Word is omnipresent from the immensity and infinity of His divinity and sustains and governs all things powerfully, not being absent but present, so the same Word in and with the human nature and through the assumed human nature subsisting nonlocally in the infinite hypostasis of the Word, from the benefit of His personal union and of His placement at the right hand of God, powerfully rules all creatures in heaven and on earth, not being absent but present. He is not kept from this by the height of the heavenly and earthly mechanism nor by its length, breadth, and depth. In fact, in comparison with the Word and His hypostasis (in which the assumed flesh subsists nonlocally and nondistantly), it is like the tiniest point and is “as nothing” (Isa. 40:12; Wisdom 11:23).
Accordingly, I draw the correct conclusion: Whoever is omnipotent and is commanded to be worshiped, that is the true God. Christ is omnipotent and we are commanded to worship Him. Therefore He is the true God. Nevertheless one should not infer from this still further that because Christ is not essentially and naturally God according to the assumed human nature He is neither omnipresent nor to be worshiped according to His human nature, for Scripture testifies that omnipotence and worship befit Him also as man because of the personal union with the Word and His exaltation. Thus, indeed, we correctly conclude: Whoever is omnipresent is the true God. Christ is omnipresent. Therefore. Nevertheless it is not correct to infer that because Christ according to His human nature is not essentially and naturally omnipresent or of an infinite essence, therefore He is not at all and in no other way omnipresent. Why, Polanus himself in the preceding c. 9 correctly claims that “the merit of Christ is of infinite might and efficacy not because of His humanity but through and because of the infinite deity with which the humanity of Christ is united personally.” Yet if infinite might is attributed correctly to Christ’s merit on the basis of the hypostatic union with the Word, why would omnipresence not also be attributed to Christ’s human nature on the basis of the same union with the omnipresent Word and His placement at the right hand of the Father? Surely, to be a partaker of infinite might is much greater than to be omnipresent.
§ 183. (III) The question arises: Is it correct to say that the Lord is present in all places? We respond. Certainly, it is correct to say that God is in all places, because the adverb “everywhere” means all places. If God, then, is present everywhere because of the immensity of His essence, surely He is also present in all places. Nevertheless we should still add that God is present in all places not with a local but with a nonlocal presence, for God is in all places in such a way that He nevertheless is not contained, circumscribed, closed up, or defined in one place. Hence we meet in the ancient fathers these two concepts: “God is everywhere” and “God is nowhere.” He is everywhere because His utterly present power contains all things; He is nowhere because He is contained by nothing and circumscribed by no place. “God is in all things but is not included,” He is outside all things but is not excluded. Augustine, De div. qq., vol. 4, q. 20, p. 232: “God is somewhere. For what is somewhere is contained by a place; what is contained by a place is body. But God is not body. Therefore He is not somewhere. Yet because He is and is not in a place, all things are in Him rather than He is somewhere. Nevertheless all things are not in Him in such a way that He Himself is a place.” The Lombard quotes these words in Sent., bk. 1, dist. 37, letter O, and writes as follows: “Augustine wants to cut off from the purity of God every local motion and local circumscription, and he says that all things are in Him rather than He is somewhere, yet He who is not in a place is not a place.”
In fact, because of that intimate presence of God in all places, God is not so much everywhere as He is that thing which we generally call “everywhere.” He is in every place without dimension, in every time without succession, whole in all things, whole in individual things, whole in Himself. He is everywhere through His presence inasmuch as He knows all things. He is everywhere through His power inasmuch as He preserves all things. He is everywhere through His essence inasmuch as He is infinite, and other things are nothing other than a shadow. He is present with all things not as coming to them. He is absent from them not as departing from them. Rather, things are said to come to Him or depart from Him. When He is said to abandon some people, that does not set a limit for His nature but describes the works of those with whom He is said to be or not to be. (See Jerome, Epist. ad Marc.)
§ 184. (IV) The question arises: Is it correct to infer God’s omnipresence from His operation in all things? We respond. One cannot infer God’s omnipresence formally and directly from His operation in all things, because the work of God in things is not the formal reason and cause of His existence in them. In fact, if through our intellect we remove any operation of His, God is still intimately present with all things solely through the immensity and infinity of His essence. But God’s omnipresence can be inferred materially and indirectly from His operation in all things, because the power by which God works in all things is His very essence. Also, God acts upon created things without the mediation of might or of addition, something that does not stem from an imperfection or limitation of His power—as Aristotle argues in Physic., bk. 7, text. 10, where he says that the corporeal and natural agent ought to be firmly united. Rather, it stems from the infinity and immensity of the divine essence and from the imperfection of created things, which are related to the divine essence the way a shadow is related to a solid body. We should also add, the immensity of His essence is not the total and only (or solitary) cause of divine omnipresence with creatures, but, in addition to that, the closest cause of that operative omnipresence is the free will of God. For if only the immensity of the divine essence were the cause, then His active omnipresence with creatures would be eternal, just as the immensity of the divine essence has been from eternity.
§ 185. (V) The question arises: Does place apply to God properly? Vorstius affirms this (De attribut. div., pp. 235, 239) but in such a way that place is considered and defined generally, abstractly, and metaphysically as “not the surface of an encompassing body” but as “an empty region or any space vacant of anything that truly subsists.” Polanus does not veer far from this idea: “We take the word ‘place’ to mean not only corporeal and physical space but also a spiritual and supernatural space, etc. There is place beyond the highest heaven just as much as there is in heaven or under heaven” (Syntagm., bk. 2, c. 12, p. 146).
We assert that place is attributed to God only improperly and metaphorically, because God as an incorporeal and utterly simple spirit is neither encompassed nor circumscribed. The space that is empty of a subsisting thing is an empty fiction of Vorstius, for that space is either created or uncreated, substance or accident. If it is created, the uncreated God will be contained by a creature. If it is uncreated, there will be something uncreated besides God. If it is a substance, it will be either corporeal or incorporeal. It cannot be corporeal substance because that is not a place but a located thing. It also cannot be incorporeal because an [in]corporeal being cannot be measured. If it is an accident, we shall have to attribute to God an accident inherent in Him that, in fact, circumscribes or contains Him.
Athanasius, vol. 1, Contra greg. Sabell., p. 514: “Take away from me separations of place when we are speaking about God, the Word, and the Holy Spirit. It is a sacrilege both to investigate and to form notions about a place where God is.” The Lombard, Sent., dist. 37, letter I: “Although the divine nature is truly and essentially in every place and in every time, nevertheless it does not move through places or times and is neither local nor temporal.”
§ 186. (VI) The question arises: Is it correct to say that God really exists outside the world in an imaginary space? Some of the Scholastics deny this and use the following argument: “That imaginary space outside the world is nothing. But God is not in nothing. Therefore He is not outside the world in an imaginary space.” Some, on the other hand, affirm it: “For if the heavens of heavens do not contain God, therefore God will be outside of heaven. But now ‘outside of heaven’ is nothing else than an imaginary space.” If God were in this world in such a way that He would not be outside it, the consequence would be that He is in this world definitively,43 for He will be in it in such a way that He is not in another. Yet it is absurd to define the divine essence (being immense and infinite) with the bounds and limits of this world. Here they cite those words of Nazianzen in De theol., bk. 2, where he concludes that God “must be placed neither only in the world nor only outside the world but in both.” Augustine responds to the philosophers who asked what God was doing before creation by asking a question of his own: “What is He doing now outside of heaven in those imaginary spaces where He can create more worlds?” (De civ. Dei, bk. 11, c. 5).
We respond with a distinction. God’s presence is taken either originally [radicaliter] or in relation to creatures. In the first way God is outside the world, because His essence is higher than heaven and deeper than earth. In the latter way He is not outside the world, because the things with which He is present are not present outside of Him. Scripture does not propose to us imaginary spaces but simply declares that God is higher than heaven, that the heavens of heavens do not contain God, that there is no investigation of the magnitude of God. God is in the world through the immensity of His essence and through the effective operation by which He sustains and preserves all things. He is not outside the world through exterior operation, because things that truly exist and are in need of divine preservation and governance are not outside the world. Rather, He is outside the world only through the immensity of His essence.
Becanus (part 1, Theol., c. 6, q. 2, no. 3) and, from him, Hacker (Commentat., vol. 1, treatise 2, q. 8, no. 10): “Two things can be seen when we say that a thing is somewhere or in a place or space. One is intrinsic and absolute presence, which the thing there has in itself. The other is its relation to the space in which it is. In the first way one can say that God really exists in a space outside this world, but not in the second way, because He has there His intrinsic and absolute presence by which He really exists in Himself. Nevertheless He does not take His real relation or name from the space in which He exists, because that space is not something real.” Briefly, as He was before the creation of the world, so today, outside the created world, God is in Himself. He is His own world and place and all things, as Tertullian says: “Tell me where He was then, when there was nothing besides Him. He was then where He is now—in Himself—for He is sufficient for Himself” (Adv. Prax., c. 5). (See Dionysius the Carthusian, Sent., bk. 1, dist. 37, letter C.)
§ 187. (VII) The question arises: In what way should the diverse modes and levels of divine presence be distinguished? The Lombard (Sent., bk. 1, dist. 37) and his commentators (in a way that is by no means awkward) count three levels of divine presence. The first is His general presence by which God is present with all His creatures and preserves and governs them (Jer. 23:24; Acts 17:27). The second is the special presence by which He dwells graciously in His saints in this life and glorifies them in the life to come, as a consequence of which the special presence of God is subdivided into the presence of grace and of glory. Third is His unique presence by which the whole and entire fullness of the Godhead dwells in the assumed human nature of Christ (Col. 2:9). The Scholastics lay out these levels in this way: “God is everywhere ineffably, in His saints mercifully, in Christ excellently.” But it is more accurate to say that God is present in the assumed nature of Christ “uniquely” rather than “excellently,” because that mode of personal presence differs from the other modes of presence not only in level or according to more or less but categorically [toto genere], in the same way as the union is one of a kind and singular.
Those who are pleased with this dichotomy can proceed in this way: There are two levels of God’s presence with His creatures, the one, separable; the other, inseparable, indivisible, continuous. The Word is present with the assumed human nature in the latter way. The separable level is subdivided into general or real, and special. In the first way God is present with all His creatures by preserving and governing them. The latter is divided into “of direct vision,” by which God is present with the blessed angels and humans in eternal life, and mystic, by which He is present with the Church and the devout in this life.
Jerome, on 2 Corinthians 5, at the end: “We read that God is present in three ways: He is present in every creature according to infinity, as He Himself says through the prophet: ‘Do I not fill heaven and earth?’ He is present in the saints according to sanctification and special indwelling according to the statement: ‘And I shall dwell in them.’ He is present in Christ according to the fullness of divinity, as the apostle says: ‘All the fullness dwells in Him.’ ”
His special presence in the saints, as we taught earlier, is subdivided into His gracious presence—which is among the saints in this life, in whose hearts God dwells (John 14:13; 2 Cor. 6:16; Eph. 3:17)—and His glorious presence—which is among the saints in heaven, to whom He offers Himself to be known perfectly and intuitively (1 Cor. 13:12; 1 John 3:2). These two modes of presence do not differ categorically but only in level, because the saints in heaven perceive a greater light of the knowledge of God and a richer grace of the divine indwelling than do the saints on earth. But even in that gracious presence of God among the saints on earth we find distinct levels and modes. (1) God in visible, external symbol at times appeared to holy men in the Old Testament; the Father revealed Himself with an audible voice and the Holy Spirit in the visible form of a dove at the Baptism of Christ in the Jordan. This can be called His symbolic presence. (2) Through Word and Sacraments, God is effective in humans for their conversion. In Baptism He works regeneration and renewal through the water poured on in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. In the Eucharist by means of the blessed bread and wine He distributes the body and blood of Christ to the communicants for the strengthening of their faith and as spiritual food for eternal life. This can be called His mystic and sacramental presence. (3) The Holy Trinity dwells gloriously and makes His home in those in whose hearts the Holy Spirit kindles faith through their hearing of the Word and use of the Sacraments. This can be called His spiritual presence.
§ 188. (VIII) The question arises: Can the levels of divine presence be distinguished by their operations alone? Let this be certain, that the presence of God with His creatures embraces not a bare nondistance without activity nor a bare activity without essential nearness, but both at the same time as is evident from previous paragraphs. The question, however, is whether that special indwelling and nearness of God in the saints infers a special drawing near of the essence itself beyond that special gracious activity.
Some deny this because they are persuaded by the following argument: That which is infinite in essence, which is essentially present everywhere and through its own essence is locally distant from no created thing, when it begins to be specially present with the saints, it cannot approach them more through some essential nearness. But God is infinite in essence, is essentially present everywhere, and through His own essence is locally distant from no created thing. Therefore when He begins to be specially present with His saints through grace, He does not come close to them through some nearness of His essence but only with respect to that special operation.
On the other hand, some cling tightly to the letter of Holy Writ and affirm this, for Holy Scripture says that “God Himself comes to the devout, makes His home among them, comes near to them, and dwells within them.” Therefore though our finite intellect cannot perceive how the infinite God with His immense essence, not being distant from His saints, comes to them by a special drawing near of His essence and begins to dwell in them, nevertheless they believe that we must not depart from the letter in the least bit, but must hold and embrace it with sure faith.
They claim that there is a distinction between the general and special or gracious presence of God not only with respect to His activity but also with respect to His essential nearness. (1) They prove this: (a) From the nature of God. God is sheer, pure act. His essence does not differ from His power, because He acts in and through Himself. Therefore a new activity is a new drawing near of His essence. (b) From examples of the other modes of presence. The presence of the Word in the flesh is not a bare activity—namely, the bearing of the flesh—or some other secondary action but is rather a special nearness of the very essence of the Word or, as the apostle says, of the entire fullness of the Godhead, joined by intimate interpenetration [
]. The Holy Spirit Himself was present in the dove in which He descended not only with a bare new activity but in a special way and with a closer union of His essence. The Holy Spirit Himself is sent with His gifts, and when humans drive Him out with their sins against conscience, they not only lose grace, but the Holy Spirit Himself, that divine guest, also abandons His temple. In the Eucharist, before the sacramental union, Christ according to His human nature is not locally distant from the bread and wine. But nevertheless in a new way—that of the Sacrament—He is united with them in the consecration, distribution, and taking of the external symbols. This mode is called sacramental not with respect to mere operation but with respect to His substantial nearness. Christ is present with His mystical body as a head is to its members, not through bare activity but through the spiritual adhering and special drawing near of His essence. Christ was present with Paul in proportion to His own free will. That “being present” does not pertain to the immensity of His essence of itself nor to a necessary nondistance, but to the free act of Christ with which He truly and substantially was present with Paul as his King and Lord and comforted him.
(2) They declare it with analogies. The whole soul is in the whole body and is whole in any part, yet it is nonetheless present in the heart as the source of life in a special way and with a more intimate nearness of essence. Thus by the infinity of His essence, God is present with all creatures; meanwhile, by a special drawing near also of His essence, He associates Himself with the devout in whom He consequently is said to live and dwell. Hilary, on Psalm 118: “Nothing is empty of God; nothing is without Him. He is everywhere in the manner of an incorporeal soul that is divided among all its members and is not absent from any part. Although a private court in the entire body is its seat, nevertheless it is infused in the marrow, digits, and veins.” The rays of the sun are present in a transparent body (namely, glass) and in an opaque one, for they touch both. However, they draw near to the glass in a special way not only as regards activity but also in relation to their being because they go deeply into it and cause it to be bright. So God is present in all things with His essence, thus even in the wicked, but the hearts of sinners are filled and darkened with shadows and are not made bright by the presence of the divine essence nor does God go into them in this way with the special drawing near of His essence. Justinian, De rect. confess.: “Just as the sun, despite the fact that it touches all things equally with its might, nonetheless is not similarly caught by all things, so the Word, which is present with all according to His essence, is not similarly present with the rest as in His own temple.” They also add the analogy of iron put in the fire that has not yet become red hot, of a shoot placed at the trunk of a tree but not yet grafted into it, etc. Here, by making the iron red hot and grafting the shoot, there occurs a special and closer joining and nearness of substances. This is proved to us by the words of Chrysostom: “I know that God is everywhere and is whole in every part of the world, but how this is, I do not know” (homily 1, De incompr. Dei natur.). We also have his statement in homily 2 on the Epistle to the Hebrews: “We know and say that God is everywhere, but how He is everywhere we do not grasp with our intellect.” The Lombard quotes these words in part 1, Sent., dist. 37, letter G, and adds: “We have to believe that in those words in which God is said to be everywhere through His essence more is contained than a living man is able to grasp.” Luther teaches that “the substantial omnipresence of God is incomprehensible” (vol. 3, German, p. 352).44
Practical use.
§ 189. (1) Consoling. If God, who is present everywhere, is with us graciously, we can say with David out of the genuine confidence of our heart: “God is our refuge and strength, our helper in the troubles that have found us. Therefore we shall not be afraid if the earth be moved from its place and the mountains be hurled into the heart of the sea…. The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our invincible fortress” (Ps. 46:[1–2, 11]). Ps. 118:6: “ 
The Lord is to me” or with me, “I shall not be afraid. What shall man do to me?” What is all the power of our foes when compared with His power? Even if all men had sworn against our head, yet if we have God with us as our protector and helper, they will not be able to remove as much as a hair from us. Therefore when we are in the greatest perils, let us say: “The Lord is with us, He who is the most powerful. Thus He will be able to protect us strongly against our foes.” 2 Chron. 20:12: “When we do not know what we should do, we have only this left: that we direct our eyes to You.” Surrounded by foes and in the midst of our enemies, let us say: “The Lord is with us, He can find and show us a way out.” (See 1 Cor. 10:13.) Ps. 3:[5–6]: “The Lord sustains me. I shall not be afraid of ten thousands of people who surround me.” When we have been thrown into the filthy darkness of prison for confessing the name of Christ, let us say: “The Lord is with me, He who is my light and salvation” (Ps. 27:1). As we walk through the shadowy valley of death, let us say with David: “Although I walk in the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for You are with me” (Ps. 23:4). God is pure light, pure joy, pure blessedness. Therefore whoever has God graciously present with him has light, joy, and life.
Chrysostom, Homil. anteq. iret in exil.: “Let no one disturb you, my brethren. Just pray. I do not trust in my own might, but I have the Scripture of my Lord. I am holding His hand. That is safe enough protection for me; it makes me safe and fearless. Even if the earth be moved, I hold the protection of my Lord. Do you want me to recite to you the protection of my Lord? He says: ‘Lo, I am with you all the days of the age.’ ”
The sweet comforts taken from the presence of God, that God Himself displays to the devout, also belong here. Gen. 46:4: “I shall go down with you into Egypt.” Exod. 3:12, to Moses: “I shall be with you.” Josh. 1:9: “Be strong and of good courage. Do not be afraid because Jehovah your God is with you wherever you go.” Isa. 43:1–2: “Thus says the Lord, He who created you, O Jacob, and He who formed you, O Israel: ‘Be not afraid…. When you pass through the water, I am with you, and through the rivers, they will not overwhelm you. When you walk through the fire, the flame will not burn you.”