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a certain definite place; and in distinction from both of these God is in space repletively,
because He fills all space. He is not absent from any part of it, nor more present in one part
than in another.
In a certain sense the terms “immensity” and “omnipresence,” as applied to God, denote the
same thing, and can therefore be regarded as synonymous. Yet there is a point of difference
that should be carefully noted. “Immensity” points to the fact that God transcends all space and
is not subject to its limitations, while “omnipresence” denotes that He nevertheless fills every
part of space with His entire Being. The former emphasizes the transcendence, and the latter,
the immanence of God. God is immanent in all His creatures, in His entire creation, but is in no
way bounded by it. In connection with God’s relation to the world we must avoid, on the one
hand, the error of Pantheism, so characteristic of a great deal of present day thinking, with its
denial of the transcendence of God and its assumption that the Being of God is really the
substance of all things; and, on the other hand, the Deistic conception that God is indeed
present in creation per potentiam (with His power), but not per essentiam et naturam (with His
very Being and nature), and acts upon the world from a distance. Though God is distinct from
the world and may not be identified with it, He is yet present in every part of His creation, not
only per potentiam, but also per essentiam. This does not mean, however, that He is equally
present and present in the same sense in all His creatures. The nature of His indwelling is in
harmony with that of His creatures. He does not dwell on earth as He does in heaven, in
animals as He does in man, in the inorganic as He does in the organic creation, in the wicked as
He does in the pious, nor in the Church as He does in Christ. There is an endless variety in the
manner in which He is immanent in His creatures, and in the measure in which they reveal God
to those who have eyes to see. The omnipresence of God is clearly revealed in Scripture.
Heaven and earth cannot contain Him, I Kings 8:27; Isa. 66:1; Acts 7:48,49; and at the same
time He fills both and is a God at hand, Ps. 139:7-10; Jer. 23:23,24; Acts 17:27,28.
D. The Unity of God.
A distinction is made between the unitas singularitatis and the unitas simplicitatis.
1. THE UNITAS SINGULARITATIS.
This attribute stresses both the oneness and the unicity of
God, the fact that He is numerically one and that as such He is unique. It implies that there is
but one Divine Being, that from the nature of the case there can be but one, and that all other
beings exist of and through and unto Him. The Bible teaches us in several passages that there is
but one true God. Solomon pleaded with God to maintain the cause of His people, “that all the
peoples of the earth may know that Jehovah, He is God; there is none else,” I Kings 8:60. And
Paul writes to the Corinthians, “But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all
things, and we in Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we in Him,” I Cor.