Presence of God

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ok - i’ve been mulling this over, and i have some thoughts on the issue. but i want to get your replies.

God is omnipresent. so He is everywhere. there is no where that He is not.

the Eucharist is the true presence, meaning that God is truly present in the Eucharist, in the host.

hell is separation from God.

how does this work, exactly? if God is everywhere, how is He MORE in my host at mass than, say, in my elbow? and if God is everywhere, how can we be separated from Him in hell?

before you answer, please understand that i’m not challenging any of the three concepts. i believe in all three completely. and i even have some ideas how they work. but i want to know what you think, and if anyone can find it, what the church teaches on the issue.

thanks!
 
Hi Jeff,

My understanding is that God creates things that are outside of Himself. He maintains them in existence by His power, no doubt, but they are still outside Himself.

The Eucharist is Jesus’ Body. In this case God Himself takes on a physical form. From our discussions of John 6, we know that this physical form is a new spiritual type of flesh, not the same as the earth, etc.

As for hell, I think someone is still very much in God’s presence but He is allowing you to live in pain according to your own choices. I would consider it like being in the same room as someone but you are not in their good graces.

My thoughts, hope helpful.

Greg
 
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Greg_McPherran:
As for hell, I think someone is still very much in God’s presence but He is allowing you to live in pain according to your own choices. I would consider it like being in the same room as someone but you are not in their good graces.
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Interesting. I always thought of hell as the place where the damned cannot sense God. Having chosen themselves over Him, He mercifully withdraws any sense of His presence, which would be an even greater torment than that of an eternity alone with themselves. Having irrevocably given them both free wills and immortal souls, it is the best He can do for those who ultimately rejected Him.

I have to think that even in hell the mercy of God abounds.
 
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BLB_Oregon:
I have to think that even in hell the mercy of God abounds.
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Hello BLB_Oregon,

I really think hell is a bit to late for the mercy of God. The rich man in Jesus’ Lazarus story begs just to have Lazarus rise from the dead to warn his friends. The rich man in hell is denied even to have cool water poured on his tongue. Even though he begs for mercy.

LUKE 16:19 The Rich Man and Lazarus

“There was a rich man who dressed in purple garments and fine linen and dined sumptuously each day. And lying at his door was a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who would gladly have eaten his fill of the scraps that fell from the rich man’s table. Dogs even used to come and lick his sores. When the poor man died, he was carried away by angels to the bosom of Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried, and from the netherworld, where he was in torment, he raised his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. And he cried out, 'Father Abraham, have pity on me. Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am suffering torment in these flames.’ Abraham replied, ‘My child, remember that you received what was good during your lifetime while Lazarus likewise received what was bad; but now he is comforted here,** whereas you are tormented. Moreover, between us and you a great chasm is established to prevent anyone from crossing who might wish to go from our side to yours or from your side to ours**.’ He said, 'Then I beg you, father, send him to my father’s house, for I have five brothers, so that he may warn them, lest they too come to this place of torment.’ But Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets. Let them listen to them.’ He said, ‘Oh no, father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’ Then Abraham said, ‘If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead.’”
Peace in Christ,
Steven Merten
www.ILOVEYOUGOD.com
 
God as pure spirit does not occupy space, but He can be said to be present wherever he acts.

He acts to hold his creation in existence. Since we are created from nothing, if God did withdraw his presence from us, we would cease to exist. (This is without regard to Grace, which is His very life indwelling in our soul.) Rather, this presence of God arises from our sheer contingency, and total reliance on him for existence. In that sense God is everywhere.

At the same time He is totally other. He is both immanent (within us) and transcendent (existing independent of and outside of us.)

The Eucharist is the real presence of Jesus Christ, body and blood, soul and divinity, truly man and truly God. Christ’s presence in the Eucharist is unique.

In hell, we separate ourselves from his grace and his love, but we cannot separate God from us entirely, since we depend on him for existence.

JimG
 
ok - so far i’ve got this:

hell might be total separation from God; or it might NOT be, but is simply being ‘out of His good graces’ and getting His cold shoulder. we depend on Him for our existence, so if we were TOTALLY separated from Him, we would cease to exist, and that’s not the case in hell, right? oh, by hell, i’m referring to final judgment - the lake of fire. not hades or purgatory. i mean final damnation. just for clarity. also - we may or may not experience God’s mercy in hell. anyone else wanna chime in on how God’s omnipresence relates to hell?

next, no one has really given any idea so far about how omnipresence relates to the eucharist. it’s been said a couple times that it is Christ’s presence, and of a different sort than our physical ‘stuff’. but no one has really breached the idea of how the God’s presence in the host is different from God’s presence in the rest of creation. at least, if anyone talked about it, i didn’t get it. anyone want to discuss that bit?

thanks for chiming in, folks. i appreciate your contributions, and i encourage everyone who HAS posted to come back again, and everyone who hasn’t, to take a stab.
 
God is the creator of everything that exists, and therefore, in a certain sense, He exists everywhere because what He created is everywhere. Remember that the term “everywhere” makes sense only when there are things that exist.

Yet by virtue of His will, God who is spirit, assumed human flesh and bones to become one with us, while retaining His divinity and hence His power. He then desired that bread and wine become His flesh and blood, as the sign of His covenant with men. He willed it to be so, hence it isn’t impossible that only bread and wine become His flesh and blood, instead of your elbow or your favorite pizza.

Even Hell is subject to His power, despite the fact that the inhabitants within have rejected Him. We can compare this to a man sentenced to life in prison. Even though physically isolated from society and deprived of his rights, he can still face a graver penalty if he tries to escape and kills a prison guard in the process. In this sense, the long arm of the law is said to be “present”, even inside his jail cell.

Gerry
 
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jeffreedy789:
but no one has really breached the idea of how God’s presence in the host is different from God’s presence in the rest of creation.
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Yes, this is most interesting indeed. The universe was created outside of God. It is in His mind and He sustains it by His will, but it is dead matter, God does not live in it. When the Word became flesh, the first cell of Jesus’ body was not created outside of God, but the first cell of Jesus’ body was God Himself. Instead of God creating matter outside Himself, He united Himself with matter so that matter became part of His being. In Jesus, there was no longer any distinction between matter and God. Jesus is God in the flesh. His flesh is part of God. If you touch a tree you are not touching God. However, if you shake hands with Jesus, you are literally shaking hands with God. I don’t think our minds can hold this well, we can only get glimpses unless we contemplate and grow in understanding. The Eucharist is the same as the incarnation, it is not created by God, it becomes God Himself. This is so amazing that we take this for granted. My wife has a Jewish background. She comes to mass often. I tell her, did you know you were in the same room with God Himself!

I don’t know how helpful this is - but I hope it provides some insight. I would also like to better understand our God. I think our preconceived notions can also cause us trouble.

Greg
 
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jeffreedy789:
ok - so far i’ve got this:

hell might be total separation from God; or it might NOT be, but is simply being ‘out of His good graces’ and getting His cold shoulder. we depend on Him for our existence, so if we were TOTALLY separated from Him, we would cease to exist, and that’s not the case in hell, right? oh, by hell, i’m referring to final judgment - the lake of fire. not hades or purgatory. i mean final damnation. just for clarity. also - we may or may not experience God’s mercy in hell. anyone else wanna chime in on how God’s omnipresence relates to hell?

next, no one has really given any idea so far about how omnipresence relates to the eucharist. it’s been said a couple times that it is Christ’s presence, and of a different sort than our physical ‘stuff’. but no one has really breached the idea of how the God’s presence in the host is different from God’s presence in the rest of creation. at least, if anyone talked about it, i didn’t get it. anyone want to discuss that bit?

thanks for chiming in, folks. i appreciate your contributions, and i encourage everyone who HAS posted to come back again, and everyone who hasn’t, to take a stab.
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Unless you are a pantheist, you don’t believe that creation is God. You believe that God is really at Yosemite, but not that he has become a rock. But we believe that the Jesus in the Eucharist is Jesus present par excellence… as real and as unequivocal as it gets: body, blood, soul, and divinity. In the Eucharist alone do we see Jesus revealing himself to us in a physical form worthy of the reverence and worship due him as God. As long as the form of bread and wine are recognizable as such, that presence remains.

In contrast, in hell alone is all sense of God, and even any possibility of ever sensing God, utterly gone. (May we be preserved from it.)
 
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jeffreedy789:
no one has really breached the idea of how the God’s presence in the host is different from God’s presence in the rest of creation.
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God’s presence in the Eucharist is different from his presence in the rest of creation in this way:

Only in the Eucharist is Jesus Christ in his humanity as well as his divinity present to us. He is present in the Eucharist just as much as he was to his apostles. The only difference is that his presence is hidden under the appearances of bread and wine.

He is not present in this way in the rest of creation.

In the rest of creation he is present by his creative power, holding all the universe in existence.

But he is not physically present as Jesus Christ, son of God and son of Mary, second Person of the Trinity.

JimG
 
I have trouble with a similiar situation. I have difficulty with the concept of God being able to simultaneously be involved with more then one person. Let alone 6 billion. I think of this sometimes in Church when as I look around while in prayer I ask myself, how can He (or Mary) be listening to all of us intently and with full concentration at one time?

Sorry, I don’t wish to upset the flow of this thread. If anyone has come to a resolution on this that they are comfortable with I’d appreciate the (name removed by moderator)ut. Or a link describing the issue.

I have one thought on it. Probably pretty silly though. Here goes:
Because God is outside time (not restricted as we are by time) He can effectively serialize every matter this world materializes without it becoming say, x minutes times 6 billion. As we simultaneously pray, He can sort of serialize my prayer followed by your prayer then resconstruct them back to a parallel (simulataneous) nature. I said it was silly! :whacky:

Don’t misunderstand I don’t lose sleep over this. But I do find myself pondering this mystery and a good answer would help my faith.

Thanks
 
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Mijoy2:
I have trouble with a similiar situation. I have difficulty with the concept of God being able to simultaneously be involved with more then one person. Let alone 6 billion. I think of this sometimes in Church when as I look around while in prayer I ask myself, how can He (or Mary) be listening to all of us intently and with full concentration at one time?

I have one thought on it. Probably pretty silly though. Here goes:
Because God is outside time (not restricted as we are by time) He can effectively serialize every matter this world materializes without it becoming say, x minutes times 6 billion. As we simultaneously pray, He can sort of serialize my prayer followed by your prayer then resconstruct them back to a parallel (simulataneous) nature. I said it was silly! :whacky:

Thanks
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Mijoy, I think you’ve got it (at least the way I understand it): meditate a bit more on your “pretty silly” profound thought. God IS outside of Time (and Space). Hence, the limitations of time and space (being with and understanding billions of people simultaneously) are no limitations on God. WE can’t fully understand that, because we currently exist in Time and Space.
But one “day” we too will no longer be bound by Time and Space (i.e, the death of this body), and then we will understand it (ie, we will see God), if all goes well.

Keep up the struggle, keep the faith!
 
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