God is everywhere?

[thessalonian]

Something has always seemed a bit odd to me. We talk about God's ominprescence. He is in the largest creature and the smallest microbe. In the center of the earth and in the furtherest star in the furthest galaxy. In the depths of the ocean and the highest mountain. God is everywhere throughout the universe. In some sense he must even be in hell.

He is said to be in you and in me. In the poor. He must even be in the most wretched sinner, though the cannot be saved until they repent. I was reading St. Bonaventure, The Ascent of the Mind of God and he said something interesting.

Speaking of God he says "As eternal and most present, it consequently encompasses and penetrates all duration, as though being at once their center and their circumference. Because it is most simple and most great, it is therefore as a whole WITHIN ALL THINGS and as a WHOLE OUTSIDE OF THEM. It is therefore "an intelligible sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere". Because it is most perfect AND BOUNDLESS, it is WITHING ALL THINGS, BUT NOT INCLUDED IN THEM, it is OUTSIDE ALL THINGS, but NOT EXCLUDED, it is above all things, but no upraised, it is below all things but not beneath them."

There's more there than would give me a good headache. But with regard to God being everywhere I just can't get my arms around it. We see him in nature but it seems he is more in nature than just nature being a visible sign of who he is. There is some sense in which he is present in nature and yet nature is not God. We are told he is in the poor. The poor are not God though and yet I think it all means that he is in them more than just figuratively. He is said to be in you and in me. He must be in the man not in grace but at some different level than in you and me, such that his spirit can be said to dwell within us. Why doesn't the spirit dwell within the unregenerate? The above says "he is within but not a part of". That is what is confusing. I am sure God's omnipresent is beyond my ability to reason what it means exactly. But help me out if you have some thoughts or instruction in this area.


Is the language figurative? I don't believe so. Any other info you would have on this matter would be helpful.

Thanks.

Thess

[Pio Nono]

JMJ
12/10 - Second Saturday of Advent

thessalonian,

Though St. Bonaventure is hard to wrap one's mind around, I hesitate to say that he uses "figurative language". In my mind, "figurative language" is just a fancy phrase for "a lie". And it is no lie - Almighty God is present in and through everything, and in a real and actual way. St. Paul says this over and over again in his letters. In a particular way is He present in those souls connected to Him by sanctifying grace - we are truly temples of the Holy Spirit. Being finite, though, means that we cannot fully contain the infinite. Somehow, God is in everything without everything being God. The image I use is one of a sponge in the ocean - though the ocean is present in the sponge, there is so much more than what the sponge can hold, yet it remains a sponge and cannot be properly called "ocean" or "water". I forget where I got that image from, but I can assure you that I didn't come up with it. Hope this helps!

Yours,
Pio Nono