About omnipresence

[Vera_Ljuba]

Omnipresence creates another logical problem.

1. God exists outside of space and time.
2. God exists everywhere and “everywhen”, within our space and time (also in heaven and in hell).

This is a simple logical contradiction. How can you believe in logical contradictions?

 

[Tyrel]

So, on one way of reading these statements, they would be contradictory. However, omnipresence (sometimes also called ubiquity) as it is typically understood in the Catholic tradition means something more like that all places and times, far from being hidden from God, are present to him, and God is present there in a qualified sense. In particular, it signifies that God is present “as the immanent cause and sustainer of creatures” even while transcending the categories of space (and time) such that He “cannot be circumscribed or measured or divided by any spatial relations.” [Reference: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06612a.htm]

Just as omnipotence isn’t challenged by God’s not being able to create a rock so heavy he couldn’t lift it (since omnipotence, properly understood, covers only the broadly logically possible), and omniscience isn’t challenged by God’s not having an experiential knowledge of what it feels like to sin (since omniscience is either propositional or factual, but not experiential), so also omnipresence/ubiquity is not challenged by claiming that God transcends space and time. A proper understanding of these terms as they are applied within the context of Catholic tradition just alleviates any apparent tensions about logical inconsistencies.

 

[Pat_Albertson]

How can you believe in logical contradictions?

By being able to do higher math . . .

 

[Vera_Ljuba]

So, on one way of reading these statements, they would be contradictory.

There is only one way to read them. Words have meanings.

However, omnipresence (sometimes also called ubiquity) as it is typically understood in the Catholic tradition means something more like that all places and times, far from being hidden from God, are present to him, and God is present there in a qualified sense.

That would be omniscience. Which is also problematic, since the future does not exist as an “actuality”, it is only a collection of possibilities, which will “collapse” into actualities, when the proper actions are actually taken. Omniscience would be more than just knowing that the flipped coin would show either heads or tails - if actually tossed - it would also mean what will be the actual result - before it is actually tossed. And that would be the equivalent of “knowing” what the third book written by someone will contain, before the author is even conceived. In other words, knowing the nonexistent.

And in a “qualified” sense? What would that mean? Something like the transubstantiation? Jesus is present in the “host” in a qualified sense? Not really, but in some “qualified” sense? Or by looking into the microscope you are present on the object-glass among the amoebae in a “qualified” sense?

With this trick of “qualified sense” even married bachelors could be possible. One can accept that marriage starts with the exchange of the wedding wows - which means that the guy is not a bachelor any longer. But if someone asserts that the marriage is only valid if it is consummated … then after the wows the guys is married in ONE sense, but still a bachelor in a “qualified sense”.

Just as omnipotence isn’t challenged by God’s not being able to create a rock so heavy he couldn’t lift it (since omnipotence, properly understood, covers only the broadly logically possible), and omniscience isn’t challenged by God’s not having an experiential knowledge of what it feels like to sin (since omniscience is either propositional or factual, but not experiential), so also omnipresence/ubiquity is not challenged by claiming that God transcends space and time.

Being actually present in space and time is the problem. Is God also present on the “other” side of the Mobius strip? Or “inside” a Klein bottle? Or maybe somewhere “to the north from the North Pole”?

A proper understanding of these terms as they are applied within the context of Catholic tradition just alleviates any apparent tensions about logical inconsistencies.

You mean, twisting the meanings of the words into something that they do no mean, is the solution to “resolve” logical contradictions. How conveeeenient!

I am glad you took the time and effort to present your thoughts. The problem is that the “Catholic” understanding is itself contradictory. And that cannot be solved by stipulating a “qualified” sense. Not to mention declaring them a “mystery” - as many others try to do. This is a very serious problem which prevents mutual understanding. Wanton disregard for meanings of words is a very bad strategy when attempting to communicate.

 

[Vonsalza]

Omnipresence creates another logical problem.

1. God exists outside of space and time.
2. God exists everywhere and “everywhen”, within our space and time (also in heaven and in hell).

This is a simple logical contradiction. How can you believe in logical contradictions?

You haven’t met your burden of proof in explaining why that’s a contradiction.

I don’t see the points as mutually exclusive in the least. God is present in every dimension - even the ones I don’t experience/comprehend. They are, after all, derived from God.

So, no. It’s not a simple contradiction. Show me why your assertion is true.

 

[Crusaderbear]

By being able to do higher math . . .

Yowsa!

God stands outside the laws imposed on the earth. Therefore He cannot contradict lawsxthat do not apply to Him!

 

[Aloysium]

There is only one way to read them. Words have meanings.

And that would be your way?
I understand them differently.

Just like 1 + 1 = 10.
Wrong any way you look at it?

. . . the future does not exist as an “actuality”, it is only a collection of possibilities, which will “collapse” into actualities, when the proper actions are actually taken. . .

That would be the case if you were God and the entire universe, all space and time revolve around you, your individual now.
There is no “now” in physics; it all is from beginning to end, when it is.

To suggest that proper actions may or may not be taken implies a cause outside the totality of determined events happening, again from beginning to end, as they must according to the prinicples that define what they are and what they do.

Here, you are getting at the nature of the human spirit, which journeys to God, participating in its own creation through free will. Once we act, we make ourselves what we are; that cannot be changed. Our future, is to be determined by us, through our choices in those moments when we are to decide whether to love or not. In the end, upon our death, it is set in eternity what we have done, whom we have chosen to become.

. . . “knowing” what the third book written by someone will contain, before the author is even conceived. In other words, knowing the nonexistent.

There is nothing nonexistent for God, who brings everything into existence. He is the eternal unchanging Fount that gives this moment life, as He does each and every moment. He is One; each and all nows emerge from that Centre.

. . . Jesus is present in the “host” in a qualified sense? Not really, but in some “qualified” sense? . . .

It is God’s Word that makes something real.
You are real, a collection of parts woven together and given wholeness of being, by His Word.

. . . twisting the meanings of the words into something that they do no mean, is the solution to “resolve” logical contradictions. How conveeeenient!

It is very difficult to describe the transcendent. To begin to understand, one needs a relationship with God, which is the most important of life’s quests. More important than simply knowing, is love.

. . . The problem is that the “Catholic” understanding is itself contradictory. And that cannot be solved by stipulating a “qualified” sense. Not to mention declaring them a “mystery” - as many others try to do. This is a very serious problem which prevents mutual understanding. Wanton disregard for meanings of words is a very bad strategy when attempting to communicate.

That one sees a contradiction in one’s mind in trying to grasp the truth reveals a fundamental problem in how one understands oneself, the world and its Ground.

As to “mystery”, think “wonder”. Things are, what they are. This is awesome!!! AMAZING!!! WOW!!!

 

[Fiasco]

There is only one way to read them. Words have meanings.

Meanings which may change depending on the subject.

That would be omniscience. Which is also problematic, since the future does not exist as an “actuality”, it is only a collection of possibilities, which will “collapse” into actualities, when the proper actions are actually taken. Omniscience would be more than just knowing that the flipped coin would show either heads or tails - if actually tossed - it would also mean what will be the actual result - before it is actually tossed. And that would be the equivalent of “knowing” what the third book written by someone will contain, before the author is even conceived. In other words, knowing the nonexistent.

That sounds good if you insist on conceiving of God as being bound by (non-existent) physical limitations. Conceiving of God in Man’s image is the reverse of the reality.

You mean, twisting the meanings of the words into something that they do no mean, is the solution to “resolve” logical contradictions. How conveeeenient!

You don’t understand the meanings of certain words as applied to God.

I am glad you took the time and effort to present your thoughts. The problem is that the “Catholic” understanding is itself contradictory. And that cannot be solved by stipulating a “qualified” sense. Not to mention declaring them a “mystery” - as many others try to do.

Do you understand all of the mysteries of existence?

This is a very serious problem which prevents mutual understanding. Wanton disregard for meanings of words is a very bad strategy when attempting to communicate.

And wanton disregard for meanings of words when applied to a Being Whose Nature/Essence is pure spirit, eternal and immutable is a very bad strategy when attempting to communicate. To someone who just poked in his nose out of curiousity: on the surface at least, it seems like you don’t want to find starting points of agreement.
Derision is obvious.

In His divine Essence/Nature, there’s nothing physical about God, so He’s free of all constraints which limit a physical substance.
God is omnipresent in the sense that His will keeps everything in existence.

Sorry,folks, i got cranky to see what looks like deliberate mis-aligning of wavelengths.
Philosophy’s not my forte’. (Neither is anything else.)

It’s after 12:30 am here…

 

[STT]

 

[Vera_Ljuba]

I don’t see the points as mutually exclusive in the least. God is present in every dimension - even the ones I don’t experience/comprehend. They are, after all, derived from God.

Even if you are the one who builds a house, you cannot be inside the house and outside it at the same time.

That sounds good if you insist on conceiving of God as being bound by (non-existent) physical limitations.

Those are logical limitations. Of course you might wish to argue that God is NOT limited by the laws of logic, that he is able to create a stone, which is too heavy for him to lift. Good luck.

You don’t understand the meanings of certain words as applied to God.

You mean the twisted meanings of words? Like performing and allowing genocide as an act of “love”? I certainly understand that you try to whitewash God, but unfortunately your attempts are futile.

 

[Vonsalza]

Even if you are the one who builds a house, you cannot be inside the house and outside it at the same time.

Sure. But I’m sure we agree that a God that exists as three distinct persons would have no trouble with that.

Those are logical limitations. Of course you might wish to argue that God is NOT limited by the laws of logic, that he is able to create a stone, which is too heavy for him to lift. Good luck.

The purpose of the “stone too heavy to lift” bit is to create a limitation of a supposedly unlimited God. The question itself is a contradiction because it asks if the infinite can produce something greater than infinite.

You mean the twisted meanings of words? Like performing and allowing genocide as an act of “love”? I certainly understand that you try to whitewash God, but unfortunately your attempts are futile.

I’m sorry that you regret mankind’s free moral agency. shrug.
So you want a God that will allow people to do whatever they want to do, unless someone is doing something you don’t like. Then you want that God to stop that person.
Do you genuinely not see the problem there?

I don’t like my neighbor’s dogs barking. So should God smite my neighbor’s dogs (or even my neighbor)?
Country A invades Country B for access to resources for it’s withering citizenry. Country A is trying to provide basic needs for their own, Country B sees the invasion as an affront to their liberty and safety. So who does God righteously smite, in your view? A or B? Most problems are at least that complex once you get past the ideologues and talking heads. So which will God-Vera smite? The languishing or the invaded?

 

[Usagi]

Even if you are the one who builds a house, you cannot be inside the house and outside it at the same time.

If you are everywhere, then you by definition are both inside and outside the house. It’s only a contradiction if the claim is that you are exclusively one or the other, and yet somehow both.

If you draw a line segment on a piece of paper, the paper touches the line at every point, but there’s also plenty of paper independent of the line.

If you draw a circle instead, blank paper definitely exists both inside and outside the bounds of the circle. Now, the same point on the paper doesn’t exist both inside and outside the circle, but the whole point of omnipresence is that God can’t be pinned down to a particular location in space or time, so He is not properly analogized to a single point.

As for your comments on God knowing the future, you are thinking far too linearly. Even physicists who aren’t bringing in God at all talk about the “world line” that a person or thing describes in the time dimension from the beginning to the end of its existence.

 

[SalamKhan]

In Islam, we believe that Allah is not a substance (physical or otherwise), therefore He is neither inside time and space nor outside of it (by way of detachment).

 

[MPat]

Omnipresence creates another logical problem.

1. God exists outside of space and time.
2. God exists everywhere and “everywhen”, within our space and time (also in heaven and in hell).

This is a simple logical contradiction. How can you believe in logical contradictions?

In order for a logical contradiction to exist, both propositions have to be meant in the same sense. Are they?

In fact, this same objection is discussed by St. Thomas Aquinas in “Summa Theologica”, First Part, Question 8, Article 2 (dhspriory.org/thomas/summa/FP/FP008.html#FPQ8A2THEP1). Namely, Objection 1:

“It seems that God is not everywhere. For to be everywhere means to be in every place. But to be in every place does not belong to God, to Whom it does not belong to be in place at all; for “incorporeal things,” as Boethius says (De Hebdom.), “are not in a place.” Therefore God is not everywhere.”

Reply to Objection 1: “Incorporeal things are in place not by contact of dimensive quantity, as bodies are but by contact of power.”.

If you want a somewhat similar example, consider your browser. In one sense it is in RAM of your computer. In another sense it is on display - as if “by contact of power”, as that process changes the pixels of your display.

 

[vz71]

Omnipresence creates another logical problem.

1. God exists outside of space and time.
2. God exists everywhere and “everywhen”, within our space and time (also in heaven and in hell).

This is a simple logical contradiction. How can you believe in logical contradictions?

I see no contradiction here.

 

[thephilosopher6]

By being able to do higher math . . .

Oh yeah? What’s the derivative of x^2?

 

[Vera_Ljuba]

Sure. But I’m sure we agree that a God that exists as three distinct persons would have no trouble with that.

We do not agree. The “trinity” is just another logical contradiction, unless you talk about a mental disorder called: “schizophrenia”. You cannot “fix” a logical contradiction with stipulating another one.

The purpose of the “stone too heavy to lift” bit is to create a limitation of a supposedly unlimited God. The question itself is a contradiction because it asks if the infinite can produce something greater than infinite.

It used to be a legitimate definition of omnipotence that it can create everything. By the way, infinity is just a mathematical concept, which has no referent in reality. There is a very widespread, yet erroneous assumption that you can define God into existence using some nonsensical attributes, and when someone points out the problem, then you try to “escape” by saying that the opponent only presents a “caricature”, and you do not believe in that “god” either.

I’m sorry that you regret mankind’s free moral agency. shrug.
So you want a God that will allow people to do whatever they want to do, unless someone is doing something you don’t like. Then you want that God to stop that person.
Do you genuinely not see the problem there?

No, I do not see any problem. All I can see that you are unable or unwilling to think outside the box. Your proposition is naïve. God could selectively create only those individuals, who will “obey” him. There is no logical impossibility here.

Country A invades Country B for access to resources for it’s withering citizenry. Country A is trying to provide basic needs for their own, Country B sees the invasion as an affront to their liberty and safety. So who does God righteously smite, in your view? A or B? Most problems are at least that complex once you get past the ideologues and talking heads. So which will God-Vera smite? The languishing or the invaded?

I would make sure that everyone has the sufficient resources to flourish. And get rid of the unnecessary “desires”. Such a simple solution.

---

Going back to the original topic, the existence inside the space-time continuum is dynamic and constantly changing. Existence outside the world is static, frozen and unchanging. It is logically impossible to have both characteristics.

 

[vz71]

We do not agree. The “trinity” is just another logical contradiction, unless you talk about a mental disorder called: “schizophrenia”. You cannot “fix” a logical contradiction with stipulating another one.

You are trying to attribute human qualities to God.
I am sure you are aware that God surpasses human qualities.

 

[Fiasco]

Even if you are the one who builds a house, you cannot be inside the house and outside it at the same time.

By flatly refusing to budge from your assertion that a god would have to have physical characteristics, you can just sit back and throw insults which are based on self-imposed ignorance.

Those are logical limitations. Of course you might wish to argue that God is NOT limited by the laws of logic, that he is able to create a stone, which is too heavy for him to lift. Good luck.

You’re right in a sense: For a start, He can’t reduce Himself. Being EXISTENCE Itself, He can’t will Himself out of existence. Hopefully, the stone one has been dealt with elsewhere. God doesn’t (physically) lift; He wills. (Already said: i know nothing about philosophy and its laws.)

You mean the twisted meanings of words? Like performing and allowing genocide as an act of “love”? I certainly understand that you try to whitewash God, but unfortunately your attempts are futile.

Red herring.
The words “person” and “Person” are examples of different meanings.

In Islam, we believe that Allah is not a substance (physical or otherwise), therefore He is neither inside time and space nor outside of it (by way of detachment).

We Christians also use the term “essence”: Spirit, utterly simple. Indivisible, because there’s nothing to divide. Eternal. Immutable.
IF we use the word “substance” when applied to God, it’d have the same meaning as “essence”. Subtle differences in meaning sure are a source of division.

We do not agree. The “trinity” is just another logical contradiction, unless you talk about a mental disorder called: “schizophrenia”. You cannot “fix” a logical contradiction with stipulating another one.

Your innocence regarding what the Trinity means…Do you have any decent idea? If not, see below. It’s nothing about 1 = 3 or anything similar.

It used to be a legitimate definition of omnipotence that it can create everything…
… and when someone points out the problem, then you try to “escape” by saying that the opponent only presents a “caricature”, and you do not believe in that “god” either

.
Unfortunately, there’s truth there, especially when the atheist sets up the ground-rules.
A personal question to an atheist or maybe an anti-theist:
Have you ever made any attempt to gain knowledge of our understanding of God from any viewpoint other than your own totally closed one?

A challenge: read the section on God:

www.katapi.org.uk/TandS/Contents.html

You expect us to approach the concept of God from your angle, and ONLY from your angle, with all of the limitations imposed by you. i challenge you to approach the concept of God from a different angle. If you refuse to do that, it doesn’t look good for you.

From our side: YOU, yourself, can’t think “outside the box” (your words). You can’t/won’t lift yourself out of the limitations of the physical realm. To cover your lack of knowledge of the supernatural, you resort to derision.

Going back to the original topic, the existence inside the space-time continuum is dynamic and constantly changing. Existence outside the world is static, frozen and unchanging. It is logically impossible to have both characteristics.

Again, you won’t ditch those limitations you place on God. You expect the rest of us to (metaphorically) fight with one hand behind our backs.

You are trying to attribute human qualities to God.
I am sure you are aware that God surpasses human qualities.

Admitting that would pull the rug out from under his whole structure.

This post is bloated!

 

[Vera_Ljuba]

(Already said: i know nothing about philosophy and its laws.)

That is obvious, it did not need to be repeated. Philosophy does not have “laws”. Logic does. Look them up.