11. Seeing God everywhere: the presence of God in all things
11. SEEING GOD EVERYWHERE: THE PRESENCE OF GOD IN ALL THINGS
Where can I find God?
The answer is literally everywhere.
God is in all things; not, indeed, as part of their essence, nor as an accident, but as an agent is present to that upon which it works. For an agent must be joined to that wherein it acts immediately, and touch it by its power; hence . . . the thing moved and the mover must be joined together.
Now since God is very being by His own essence, created being must be His proper effect, as to ignite is the proper effect of fire.
Now God causes this effect (being, existence) in things not only when they first begin to be, but as long as they are preserved in being, as light is caused in the air by the sun as long as the air remains illuminated. Therefore as long as a thing has being, God must be present to it according to its mode of being. But being is innermost in each thing and most fundamentally inherent in all things . . . Hence it must be that God is in all things, and innermostly.
Objection 1. It seems that God is not in all things, for what is above all things is not in all things, but God is above all things.
Reply to Objection 1. God is above all things by the excellence of His nature. . . (but) He is in all things as the cause of the being of all things. . . .
Objection 2. Further, what is in anything is thereby contained. Now God is not contained by things, but rather does He contain them. . . .
Reply to Objection 2. Although corporeal things are said to be in another as in that which contains them, nevertheless spiritual things contain those things in which they are, as the soul contains the body. (The soul contains the body, not vice versa, as the spiritual meaning of a play contains its physical setting, not vice versa.) Hence also God is in things as containing them.
Objection 4. Further, the demons are beings. But God is not in the demons, for there is no fellowship between light and darkness. . .
Reply to Objection 4. In the demons there is their nature, which is from God, and also the deformity of sin, which is not from Him; therefore it is not to be absolutely conceded that God is in the demons except with the addition inasmuch as they are beings. But in beings not deformed in their nature, we must say absolutely that God is (I,8,1).
This point is so important that it will take two pages to explore it. It is important because it can directly help you to become a saint. The easiest and most effective way to become a saint is to “practice the presence of God,” which is to get just a little bit closer to the Beatific Vision which we will have in Heaven, the Vision which will make it impossible for us to sin because we will be in the presence of the One Who is so supremely beautiful and good and lovable that sin will no longer be attractive, and because “we will see Him as He is.” Then we will know by direct sight and experience rather than by faith that nothing can ever be more attractive than Him. We can get only a little bit closer to that Vision in this life, but even the tiniest bit of progress on that road is worth infinitely more than spectacular success on any other road.
St. Thomas here gives us the philosophical basis for practicing the presence of God everywhere. He explains how God is everywhere, in all things. If we see this “big picture”, the whole world will light up like a stained glass window when the rising sun (the rising Son!) suddenly shines on it, all the colors bursting into life with one and the same light.
This is not pantheism, but it is not deism either. Pantheism sees God as a sea and us as waves: He’s only all of us. Deism sees God as a deadbeat dad Who left His kids after fathering them. He’s gone. For St. Thomas, God is in all things, present rather than absent; but He also transcends all things. In fact, He is in all things only because He transcends them all—like light: only because it transcends all colors, can it be present to all colors. Or like mind: only because it transcends matter can it be present to all matter by knowing it all. So with God: because He is infinite existence itself, transcending all finite, limited essences or natures, He can be present to all of them in giving them existence.
The essence of a rock, a dog, or a man, does not include God. But their existence is caused by God, not just in the past, by creation, but also in the present, by preservation. God preserves them in being, He continues to give them the act of existence.
Everything gives what it has, and God is the fullness of being itself, so God gives being, i.e., He creates being and preserves in being. To say that God is the fullness of being is to say that God does not have existence, from any outside source or cause; He is existence by His own essence, therefore He can give it; and this is what creation of being and preservation in being means.
Pantheism grasps half the truth: that God is not one being among others, but the fullness of being. But pantheism forgets His transcendence. Deism grasps the other half of the truth: that God is the transcendent Creator; that He is not any creature, nor the sum total of all creatures, but transcends creatures. But deism forgets His immanence, His presence.
St. Thomas explains that presence by the nature of causality. For A to cause B, A must touch B, A must meet B. Since God causes creatures, He must touch them. Men do not impregnate women without touching them, and women do not give birth to children without touching them, and baseball bats do not move baseballs through the air without touching them. And minds do not solve problems without touching them mentally, i.e., thinking about them. The “touch” may be physical or mental, but all causality involves some touch, i.e., some presence of the cause to the effect.
But creatures touch other creatures only externally, from without. God touches creatures internally, at their ultimate center: their act of existing. He “turns them all on” from within. Hot things give heat, and dogs give dogginess, and God, Infinite Being, gives being. And therefore we can find Him in every being, in every grain of sand.
Gilson calls this “the great syllogism”:
(1) Being is innermost in each thing.
(2) God is very being, by His own essence.
(3) Therefore God is in all things, and innermostly.
Think of a thing as a series of concentric circles. From the outer to the inner, they are: (1) external relations to other things, (2) accidental actions, (3) accidental qualities or properties, (4) essential properties, and (5) the essence itself.
For instance, there is (1) your superiority to your cat (relation), (2) your eating steak (action), (3) your being hungry (accidental quality), (4) your ability to speak (essential property), and (5) your being human, being a rational animal (your essence).
Or for Bambi there is (1) being in the forest (relation), (2) running (action), (3) being skinny (accidental property), (4) having senses (essential property), and (5) being a deer (essence).
What makes all five of these aspects actual is existence, the point at the center of all five circles. A unicorn has these other five aspects too, but none of them is actual, or real, because unicorns don’t exist, even though they have perfectly good essences and the other four dimensions. When God gives existence to a deer but not to a unicorn, He “turns on” the whole of the deer, and is therefore present to the whole concrete substance, all of the deer, at once.
And because He is not in time, He is not past or future but present, present now, creating us now, not just in the past. God has no dead past and no unborn future; He is “the living God”, not the dead or unborn God; He is everything that He is, and does everything that He does, in the present. He is always now. He is right now saying: “fiat”, “let it be” to you. That is why you exist. And your cat too.
Meet Him there. For “all real living is meeting” (Rabbi Martin Buber in I and Thou).