"It means that God is everywhere at once. He is big enough to cover all of creation and he is fully present everywhere."
"That is an interesting definition. Let me see what you mean by it."
"Now I'm in trouble." I thought.
"Your image is that of a being so large that he covers everything and
is in everything."
"Yes."
"Is the very part of this being which is in New York also here in London?"
"Uh... no, it can't be in two places at once."
"Then this being is not fully present everywhere."
"I changed my mind. Yes, that which is in New York is also in London."
"How?"
I ran my fingers through my hair and then took a sip of coffee hoping that might yield an inspiration. It didn't. "I don't know, you tell me."
"Your definition of omnipresence is inaccurate for starters. Omnipresence does mean the ability to be present to all of creation, that is, to be everywhere, and it is the ability to be fully present, not just partly present, to all of creation. However, size has nothing to do with omnipresence. The Most High doesn't need to be 'big enough' to be everywhere. His ability to be everywhere has more to do with his existing outside of time than his size. Because the Most High is not bound by time, he can be present at any point in time. He can visit any point on the time line. If you again take the thirtieth of April 1952, at two o'clock exactly, it is possible for the Most High to visit anything in the universe at that moment of time. He not only can be, but is fully present in all of these places as well."
"Like you said earlier, he could be at the hospital, Parliament, Joseph Stalin's lunch and the Yankees' game.... Hold on a moment. You said he not only can be, but is present in all places."
"Yes."
"As in every molecule? He is fully present in every atom?" "Exactly. As far as science is concerned, material creation is made of a huge number of very small particles. If you personally had an infinite amount of time it would be possible to visit each particle as it were."
"A bit like a doctor making house calls, but to every particle in creation?"
"For one with an infinite amount of time, that is no problem. However, you must remember that it is not as if he only manages to visit everyone of them in the course of several thousand years. He can visit every one of them in the smallest division of time. Literally, no time goes by between his visits. In every moment of time he visits every one of them and 'touches' them, as it were. It is this touch that keeps them going, that keeps them existing. Without this, they would cease to be."
"It's like one of those old variety shows where people spun plates one the top of six foot poles. They had to tap each one every so often or they would lose their momentum and fall to the ground, shattering into hundreds of pieces."
Michael continued. "Every particle of matter is given the energy, the power to continue in existence by this infinite series of 'divine touches.' Without them, all of material creation would disappear in a single moment."
"Can you explain what you mean by this divine touch. I sure don't feel anything, but then maybe I am just used to it? Is that it?"
"Not exactly. In a sentence, it is the divine touch, or power from the Most High which creates all matter and then keeps it all in being by giving it the power or ability to exist. Without these touches, all things would cease to exist."
"That is a nice definition. What does it mean?"
"It means that if you were broken down into your smallest constituent parts, you would find that you teeter between being energy and matter. You could lose all of your matter and turn into energy."
"If I could manage to control which bits of matter were to be turned into energy, I could make a lot of money in the weight loss business." I thought. I held my tongue.
"Matter in its smallest form has some interesting properties. It is like light in that respect. Light has some properties that make you think it is matter, and some properties that make you think it is a wave of energy. In its most basic form, matter and energy are very closely related. Matter is always teetering on the brink of turning back into energy and energy into matter. It is at this level that the Most High transforms his existence into what you call matter. It is a function of his omnipotence. His power, his energy, his existence he transforms into matter, and the energy that holds matter together. If he were to stop willing this to be, both matter and energy would disappear. Fortunately, he doesn't. Ultimately, when you get down to this most basic level, all things are given their being from the Most High. The divine touch is his infinite energy transformed into a finite amount of matter and energy, in an infinite number of moments in time."
"That almost sounds like the basis for the Big Bang. A huge amount of energy is supposed to have been turned into a huge amount of matter in the first moment of time."
"That is the theory."
"Is it the correct understanding of what happened?"
"To some degree, yes. However, I would remind you that what was considered to be certain in one age was proven to be not the best explanation in succeeding ages. The same will be true about modern astronomy. The present laughs at the certainties of the past, and so your great grandchildren will laugh at the certainties of today. Copernicus was wrong about some things but he was more right than his predecessors. The same is true for Galileo, Newton, and Einstein."
"What would happen if God quit. Would everything instantly revert back to nothing. Would all matter and energy, including me, no longer exist? Would it be like the Big Bang in reverse: the Big Unbang?"
"In theory, yes."
"Why, 'in theory?'"
"If we all ceased to exist, how could we prove anything?"
"I see your point."
"Now, if we review what we have covered so far, that will help in understanding the next point where we put it all together. First, I noted that the present is infinitely short, indeed, without dimension. Secondly, I explained how time can be looked at as three dimensional, not just linear. It became infinitely big. You could cut across the timeline and review all of the events which were happening at any given point in time for as long as you liked. Finally, we considered how the Most High is omnipresent, that is fully present to everything. Now the next thing to understand about the Most High that he has no past and no future. He, unlike us, exists only in the present, or to put it in its formal terms, he exists in one act of being."
"One act of being?"
"Yes."
"You lost me with this one act of being idea."
"I'll explain. Are you exactly the same now, today, as you were last year?"
"No, I have changed some."
"And next year will you be the same as you are now?" "No. I hope to lose about ten pounds."
"You see, you are subject to change. What you are now, you weren't before and what you will be next is not what you are now. You don't exist in one act of being. Your existence is spread over time in successive moments of being. Accordingly, you cannot think every thought you will ever think all in one act."
"True. I think my brain would explode. I have enough trouble keeping
clear on what I'm supposed to be doing today, much less what I am going
to be doing forever."
"But the Most High cannot be limited by time, even three dimensional
time. He is all that he is in one act, in one point in time, in an eternally
present now. He doesn't change. He is what he is, or, as it says in the
scriptures, 'I am I am.' He only exists in the eternal present tense, a
point in time which contains all time. Let's go back to the time line.
I'll explain how the Most High relates to it. First we expanded it and
made it infinite in both directions. Then we expanded it again and made
it possible to remain in one given moment of time but touring the universe,
as it were, checking in on everything that is happening at that given moment.
Now what we must do is take all of this three dimensional time and collapse
it into a point. This becomes the eternal present. All of time is contained
in that point. It is one point in time. All that is, was or will be exists
in that point, and that is the dimension of time for the Most High."
"One act of being?" I said. "The infinitely big contained in the infinitely small."
"As it were, yes."
"But I don't follow why there is no change for God. I have heard people say that time is the measure of change but I don't understand that."
"Let's go back to the idea that the present is short, only a point in time. This is true for you as well as the Most High. Because the present moment is infinitely short and has no dimensions there is no time for anything to change. Everything is stabile."
"Let me try it." I said. "There is no change in the present moment because it is so short as to be immeasurable. It is as if nothing really happens in the present. It has happened or is about to happen from our point of view. And, because God exists in one moment, the eternal present, which also has no dimensions, He does not change."
"Yes. The Most High exists in an eternally present moment. He has only one act of being. It is not succeeded by another one. If it were, then he would exist in time and he too would change."
"Therefore, in the eternal now, God exists in one act of being, unchanging, ruling over an ever changing universe. It is obvious, once you see it. He can know everything all at once. He can love everything at once. He possesses all virtue at once. He can be in all things fully at every moment they experience while for him it is only one moment. He will not change nor diminish. For him there is no past or future, no up or down or across. There is only the 'eternal now' for God."
"How does the bible begin?" Michael again seemed to abruptly change the subject. In the end he was simply explaining omnipresence from another angle.
"'In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.'" I answered with certainty.
"Stop. You have gone too far."
"What?"
"Let's just deal with the phrase 'In the beginning God.' In the beginning there was only God. There was nothing else - God and God alone. No heavens, no earth, no universe, no time, nothing - God was all there was. Within his one act of being, in his moment of time, time as you know it began. Now, what was the next word?"
"Created."
"'In the beginning God created.' The Most High created everything - all that is seen and unseen. So where did it all come from?"
"From God."
"Yes. It was not that the Most High took something that already was and then gave it form. He did not just form creation; he created it. Also, he created it from within himself, within his one act of being, right?"
"He had to. There wasn't anything else."
"So all that is simply came from within the Most High. In this sense,
everything that has been created, was originally in him, including you.
Now put that in the present tense."
"So we should not say, 'Everything that has been created, was originally
in him.' Instead we should say 'Everything that is created, is still in
him.'"
"Yes. It still is in him, still in his one act of being. As Paul said, 'In him we live and move and have our being.' There is nothing that is, that is not in the Most High. There is nothing which he does not encompass."
"From this perspective it would appear that I have understood omnipresence backwards. Omnipresence doesn't mean that the Most High is in every tree, but that every tree is in the Most High. The creator of all things, because he created all things in himself or from himself, by definition, must be omnipresent, or present to all things because all things are in him."
"Well done. Now, let's illustrate something similar mathematically. How good are your maths?"
"I think I need another cup of coffee!" I said as I got up. I also thought, "I could use another brain, Einstein's for instance." I got my coffee and said, "Go ahead. It has been over twenty years since I looked at a mathematics textbook, so go slow."
Michael took out a pen and began to write on a napkin, saying: "This symbol designates infinity." Michael wrote ' .' "In this equation it will represent the Most High. The number 'one' represents you and ten billion or '10b' will represent the rest of humanity. Now solve this equation for me: Infinity minus one equals what?"
On the napkin Michael wrote - 1 = ?. I answered, "Infinity."
"Now try this one. Infinity minus ten billion?" He wrote - 10b = ?.
I answered, "It's still infinity."
"Correct. Now let's change it. Infinity plus one equals what?" On the napkin Michael wrote + 1 = ?.
I answered, "Infinity."
"And this, infinity plus ten billion?" He wrote + 10b = ?.
I answered, "It's still infinity."
"The point I am making so far is about our importance relative to the Most High. He is infinite. We neither add nor subtract from his nature at all.... Now for the next point. What is infinity minus zero?"
"Infinity."
"Let's put that together with the previous equation."
I wrote: - 10,000,000,000 = and then wrote - 0 = .
Michael said, "Since both are equal to then - 10,000,000,000 = - 0. Now, subtract infinity from each side."
"10,000,000,000 = 0. Hold it! There must be something wrong!"
"Yes there is. You can't subtract infinity from an equation. But it
illustrates a point. Apart from the Most High, everything is nothing.