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Omnipresence and Incorporeality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Grace M. Dyck
Grace M. Dyck
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of Philosophy, Trinity Western College, Langley, Canada
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Extract

Predominant branches of historic Christianity have traditionally held to each of two doctrines about God: that he is incorporeal and that he is omnipresent. And in the minds of many people, these two doctrines do not simply represent two independent characteristics or attributes of God, but rather they are closely related. A.H.Strong, a conservative theologian active during the early years of this century, writes, ‘God’s omnipresence is not the presence of a part but of the whole of God in every place. This follows from the conception of God as incorporeal.’1 More recently, Dr Harold Kuhn put forward a view which similarly links the two notions.2 When we recite the Apostles’ Creed and affirm our belief in ‘God the Father Almighty’ we are, according to Kuhn, also implying our belief in an incorporeal God, for any imputation of a body to him would appear to entail spatial limitation, since it is thought that only a bodiless being could be omnipresent.

Type
Research Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 13 , Issue 1 , March 1977 , pp. 85 - 91
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1977

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References

1 Strong, Augustus Hopkins, Systematic Theology (Judson Press: Philadelphia, 1907), p. 281.Google Scholar

2 Kuhn, Harold H., ‘God: His Names and Nature’ in Carl Henry, F. H., ed., Fundamentals of the Faith (Zondervan: Grand Rapids, 1965), p. 49.Google Scholar

3 Burwell, James Oliver, A Systematic Theology of the Christian Religion (Zondervan: Grand Rapids, 1962), p. 38.Google Scholar

1 I owe this example to Professor J. J. McIntosh, University of Calgary.

2 See Reichenbach, Hans, ‘Non–Euclidean Spaces’ in Smart, J. J. C., ed., Problems of Space and Time (Macmillan: New York, 1964).Google Scholar

3 Kuhn, , op. cit. p. 51.Google Scholar