Omnipresence is defined as the property of being everywhere present. In accordance to both western theism and certain religions such as Judaism and Christianity, God is omnipresent. Thus, divine omnipresence is one of the attributes of a perfect being. Various philosophers have argued how an immaterial being may be omnipresent, which will be discussed in further detail below.
Classical theism proposes that God is both immaterial and omnipresent, which raises the question of how an immaterial being could be present everywhere. St. Anselm reasoned that God “exists in every place and at all times” in his piece, Monologion. However, in the following chapters, Anselm contradicted himself by stating that God “exists in no place and at no time.” In…show more content… Although Swinburne’s views were rather different from those of Hartshorne’s, he accepted the ‘limited embodiment’ of God which he claimed to be compatible with his belief that He is an immaterial spirit. Swinburne’s conclusion is that if God directly controls all things and knows everything about all things without information being passed to Him through some causal chain, then it is proof of His omnipresence. According to Aquinas, God does not attain knowledge by means of a causal chain, but rather he sees things in himself, just as his essence has the resemblance of other things other than Himself. Nevertheless, Swinburne’s conclusion contradicts free will; he says that God controls all, including the free acts of other organisms. Swinburne should have said that God can directly control what occurs at any given place instead. Swinburne, however, seems to be on the right track; God’s omnipresence is proven by his acquisition of immediate knowledge and power. If God wasn’t everywhere present, and had not received information by means of a causal chain, there is no other explanation of how He had received information about a specific place. Furthermore, it is argued that the most immediate knowledge and power is not about one’s body, but rather one’s volitions. Although it is true, technically the true definition of immediate knowledge is knowledge that is not dependent on other knowledge. In that case, both knowledge of one’s body and one’s volitions are both immediate knowledge. Thus, Swinburne is not wrong in saying that immediate knowledge and power is that of one’s
