The first is closest to the Native Americans' worldview the latter resembles the Vedic outlook. There are two predominant viewpoints here: pantheism, deity is the summation of Existence and panentheism, deity is an emergent property of existence. Some omnipresent religions see the whole of existence as a manifestation of the deity. While most Paleolithic cultures followed polytheistic practices, a form of omnipresent deity arises from a worldview that does not share ideas with mono-local deity cultures. Several ancient cultures such as the Vedic and the Native American civilizations share similar views on omnipresent nature the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans did not worship an omnipresent being. Most Christian denominations - following theology standardized by the Nicene Creed - explain the concept of omnipresence in the form of the 'Trinity', by having a single deity (God) made up of three omnipresent persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Others propound a deity as having the 'Three O's', including omnipresence as a unique characteristic of the deity. Craig argues that omnipresence is a derived characteristic: an omniscient and omnipotent deity knows everything and can be and act everywhere, simultaneously. More seriously, if God is spread out throughout space, like an invisible ether, that means that he is not fully present everywhere. We do not want to say that because God is infinite. For one, it would mean that if the universe is finite, which is perfectly possible, then God would be finite. This would be incorrect for several reasons. He is not like an invisible gas that is everywhere present in space. William Lane Craig states that we shouldn’t think of God as being in space in the sense of being spread out like an invisible ether throughout space. This includes unlimited temporal presence. It is related to the concept of ubiquity, the ability to be everywhere or in many places at once. Omnipresence means minimally that there is no place to which God’s knowledge and power do not extend. In Western theism, omnipresence is roughly described as the ability to be 'present everywhere at the same time', referring to an unbounded or universal presence. This theory defines a universal and fundamental substance, which is the source of all physical existence.ĭivine omnipresence is thus one of the divine attributes, although in Western Christianity it has attracted less philosophical attention than such attributes as omnipotence, omniscience, or being eternal. Hinduism, and other religions that derive from it, incorporate the theory of transcendent and immanent omnipresence which is the traditional meaning of the word, Brahman.

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