5. The omnipresence of God. (Omnipraesentia Dei.)
Man and all creatures are locally limited. To express that the attribute "omnipresent" belongs to God in a unique way, the dogmatists remind that the angels are not omnipresent either, neither the good nor the bad ones. Chemnitz writes: 1372) Unus angelus est in Persia, alter in Graecia, Dan. 10:13.
What Scripture says about the omnipresence of God can be summarized in this way in the face of multiform error: God is present to all creatures
a. according to His essence, not only according to His effect, as in the interest of a false Christology some Reformed have taught and also newer theologians teach.1373) Where God works, there he is also. God never works in abesentia. Luther expresses this as follows:1374) "God does not send out officials or angels when he creates or sustains something, but all such things are the work of his divine power itself. But if he is to create and maintain it, he must be there and make and maintain his creature in the most essential as well as in the most essential. For this reason he himself must be in every creature in its innermost, innermost, around and around, through and through, below and above, in front and behind, so that nothing more present nor more inward can be in all creatures than God himself with his power." Thus the Scripture teaches when Jer. 23:24 God says of Himself: "Do you think that someone can hide himself so secretly that I do not see him? says the Lord. Is it not I who fill heaven and earth?" That God sees everyone is
1372) Loci I, 39.
1373) Cf. on the doctrine of Christ's person vol. II, 185 ff.
1374) St. L. XX, 804.
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justified here by the fact that God himself, not only his effect, fills heaven and earth and is therefore everywhere (אֲנִ֥י מָלֵ֖א [HEBREW]]). Likewise, Ps. 139:8: "If I lead to heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there also."
b. God is so present in all creatures that he remains at the same time outside of the creatures, that is, never becomes creature or a part of the creature. So inwardly is God present to all creatures that they alone have existence and efficacy in him (έν αντφ), Acts 17:28: Ev αντφ ζώμεν καί κίνούμε'ϑα καί έαμέν. Col. 1:18: Τά πάντα έν αντφ σννέστηκεν. But in doing so, God remains at the same time as far outside the creature and divorced from the creature as the infinite is divorced from the finite. Axiom: Deus nunquam in compositionem creaturarum venit. [“God never comes into the composition of creatures.”] Gerhard: 1375) Deus est ubique praesens non σννεκτώς, ut comprehendatur, sed σννεκτικώς, ut comprehendat et contineat omnia. [“God is everywhere present, not σννεκτώς, that he may be comprehended, but σννεκτικώς, that he may comprehend and contain all things.”] With respect to the essential presence of God in all places and in all creatures attested in Scripture, it is well known that the question has been raised whether God is to be thought present even in unclean places. Luther, too, was prompted by Erasmus' "Diatribe" to pronounce on the question. Erasmus did not want to deny the presence of God in unclean places, but thought that it could not be addressed before the people without offence.1376) Luther responds,1377) , that while not unspiritual and hopeful chatterers, serious and pious pastors could speak "decently and sweetly" (cum decore et gratia) and "with great benefit" (magno fructu) about this subject before the people. He leads Erasmus ad absurdum. He recalls the fact that many holy martyrs were thrown into very unclean prisons, even into the cesspools. Now, if God's presence in unclean places were not to be spoken of, and therefore not to be thought of, then from locus abominabilibus the holy martyrs would not have been able to invoke God either, but would have had to wait with their invocation until they came to a decorated temple. But as far as the matter itself is concerned, namely God's essential presence even in unclean places, Luther points out
1375) Loci, L. De Nat. Dei, § 172.
1376) Cf. Erasmus' "Diatribe," printed in German translation in the St. Louis edition of Luther's works, XVIII, 1605.
1377) Opp. V. a. VII, 141 sq. St. L. XVIII, 1700.
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that it cannot be denied because the Scriptures testify, Deum esse ubique et replere omnia [“God is everywhere and fills everything”]. He who, like Erasmus, finds this annoying, has human, childish thoughts of God. He thinks of God as enclosed by the creatures, while all the heavens do not encompass him.
c. God is present everywhere without extension (extensio) or contraction (rarefactio), without multiplication (multiplicatio) or division (divisio). To address God as an extension etc. would only make sense if we were allowed to transfer the concept of space to God. But this is forbidden by the Scriptures, when God, besides being and working in the world, is ascribed at the same time the sublimity over the whole world and over all that is space, as 1 Kings 8:27: "The heavens and all the skies do not contain him" and Is. 66:1: "Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool; what then is the house that ye will build me, or what is the place where I shall rest?" One might well expect that, at least within Christendom, no one would think of ascribing local or physical extension to God. And yet it did. It has always been the concern of Zwingli, Calvin, and more recent Reformers that human nature or the body of Christ would not want to be large enough to serve as the σώμα of the whole fullness of the Godhead (Col. 2:9). Luther reassures Zwingli and fellow Reformers with the following words:1378) "The proud, haughty spirit … thus reveals his coarse foolish thoughts, since he does not think differently of God's being in all places, except as if God were a great, vast being, who fills the world and thoroughly towers over it. It is as if a straw bag were full of straw and still extended above and below, just according to the first bodily, comprehensible way. Of course, Christ's body would be a mere poem and ghost, as a big straw sack, since God would be inside with heaven and earth. Would this not be speaking and thinking roughly enough of God? But we do not speak in this way, but say that God is not such an extended, long, wide, thick, high, deep being, but a supernatural, inscrutable being, who is at the same time in every grain completely and yet in all and above all and apart from all creatures; therefore there must be no enclosure, as the spirit dreams. For
1378) St. L. XX, 960 f.
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one body is much, much too wide for the Godhead, and there could be many thousand Godheads inside; again, also much too narrow that not one deity can be inside. Nothing is so small, God is still smaller; nothing is so large, God is still larger; nothing is so short, God is still shorter; nothing is so long, God is still longer; nothing is so wide, God is still wider; nothing is so narrow, God is still narrower, and so on it is an ineffable being above and apart from everything that can be named or thought." In the foregoing words of Luther, in contrast to foolish human thoughts, we have perhaps the most powerful description of the omnipresence of God found in any human writing since the time of the apostles.
To the description of the omnipresence of God still some special questions have followed. 1. Is there a space outside of the world? This question must be answered decisively in the negative. Space belongs to the world, is a creature of God like the world itself and does not extend beyond the world. Where the world ends, space also ends. The assumption of a space beyond the world would result in a progressus in infinitum and finally pantheistically identify God and the world. Where the world ends, there is God. According to Col. 1:17 the universe (τα πάντα) is not in space but in God (εv αντω, scil. ϑεω). Gerhard:1379) Deus dat loco et rebus, quae sunt in loco, suum esse. When Zwingli asserted at the colloquium at Marburg (1529) that every true body must exist spatially and in space, Luther reminded him that the world body (the universe) was a true body and yet not in space.1380) 2. Is a special approximation of the divine essence (specialis approximatio essentiae divinae) to be assumed in the case of special divine acts of grace and wrath? Quenstedt and others answer yes,1381) Baier and others answer no.1382) On the basis of the scriptural passages which state the essential presence of God in the whole universe (Jer. 23:24), it is probably safer to agree with Baier. In the assumption of a specialis approximatio secundum substantiam there seems to be the danger that we transfer the concept of space (extensio) to God. But it is to be noted in any case
1379) Loci, L. De Nat. Dei, § 172.
1380) For more details, see the doctrine of Christ's person, Vol. II, 204 f.
1381) Systema II, 902.
1382) Comp. ed. Walther II, 24 sqq. Baier's dogma-historical exposition is very detailed.
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and was also held by Quenstedt and Baier that not only God's gifts, but God Himself dwells in the believers (Jn. 14:23). The Lutheran church also explicitly rejects as contrary to Scripture in its confession1383) "that not God, but only the gifts of God dwell in the believers". 3. What did God do before the creation of the world? Luther counts this question among the useless ones and refers to Augustine's answer: Deum praeparasse infernum curiosa scrutantibus [“God has prepared a hell for those who search curiously”].1384)
As for usus practicus, Scripture uses the omnipresence of God a. as a warning. Because God fills heaven and earth, there is no place where God does not see us (Jer. 23:24). No change of place takes us out of the realm of God's omnipresence (Ps. 139:9 ff: "Would I take wings of the dawn" etc.). Gerhard:1385) Saepius in tenebris ea committuntur, quae in praesentia honesti alicuius viri facere reformidaremus, at Deus ubique praesens est, quem nec latere quidquam nec fallere quisquam potest; qui ergo fit, quod illius praesentia non incutit nobis timorem et cautam solicitudinem delicta vitandi. [Google] b. For consolation. Ps. 23:4, "Whether I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me ( עִמָּדִ֑י אַתָּ֥ה [HEBREW]). Matt. 28:20: "I am with you (εγώ μεϋϑ υμών) always, even to the end of the age." Gerhard:1386 ) Coniecti in squalorem et caliginem carceris ob nominis Christi confessionem, dicamus: Dominus mecum est, qui est illuminatio et salus mea. Es. 43:1, 2: "Sic ait Creator tuus, o Iacob, et Formator tuus, o Israel: Ne timeas! Cum transieris per aquam, tibi adsum, et per flumina, ne inundent te, cum ambulas per ignem, non accendit te flamma." [Google]