God and Space



I passed my Comprehensive exam in Philosophy of Religion at Ankara University a couple weeks ago.  Now, it's time to start research for my dissertation.  I had been deciding between a couple topics but my advisor and the other professors were explicit in expressing their preference for "God and Space."  This topic came to me originally as a recommendation from William Lane Craig during his visit in April.  The topic of God and time is often discussed and researched, but there are at least as many interesting questions related to the "where" questions as there are to the "when" questions.


Omnipresence, for example.  It seems that a fundamental distinction between the physical and the spiritual is that physical substances occupy space (or have "extension") and are therefore spatially located, while the soul, for example, is spiritual and therefore does not take up space and is not spatially located.  So, if God is a spiritual being then he does not have extension and is not spatially located.  How then, do we make sense of omnipresence?  In what way does it make sense to say that God, who is not located in any place, is somehow in every place?


Aquinas solved the problem by reducing omnipresence to omniscience.  In other words, God is only in every place by virtue of his being directly aware of every place.  God's knowledge is everywhere.  But is this the same as saying that God is everywhere?  Maybe, since God doesn't have a physical body that he has to use as the vehicle for carrying his thoughts around.  But it still doesn't seem satisfactory in a theological sense.


On an opposite side of the spectrum pantheists, and perhaps process theologians, solve the problem by equating God with the universe itself.  God is everywhere because everything is God.  There is nothing outside of God (to use a more panentheistic expression) and in this way God is located in every place. 


Of course, there have been a number of proposals that attempt to steer between these two bookend positions.  There are a number of questions here that interest me.  Theologians differ on how appropriate it is to use a body/soul analogy to describe God's relationship to the universe.  Humans have a physical component, the body, and a non-physical component, the soul.  The body is spatially located and the soul is not.  However, there is a unique way that the soul is related to the body such that we feel justified in saying that the soul is "in" our body.  Where my body is, my soul is also.  But why is that?  Perhaps it is because I am only able to be directly aware of, and in some measure direct control of, my body and those things that my body can affect.  I can't actually see something unless my eyes are there to take it in, for example.  Still, it isn't literally true to say that my soul is "located" in my body.  If I lose an arm do I also lose a part of my soul?  Of course not.  So, can these observations inform our understanding of omnipresence?  Can we say that God is related to the universe in the way a soul is related to the body?  He "occupies" the universe without taking up space in it.  He has direct awareness and control over the universe, but he is not the universe itself.  There seem to be some valid comparisons, but more conservative theologians and philosophers don't like pursuing this train of thought. 


A related problem is whether we can say that the universe is God's body and still retain a doctrine of transcendence and self-existence.  Wainwright, for example, wants to say that God is contingently embodied in the universe although he doesn't need the universe for any of his attributes to be actualized.  Can God choose to relate to the universe in this way, temporarily being "embodied" in the world itself? 


Christianity has another unique position on the question of God and Space.  If Jesus is God incarnate, then we are claiming that God can be physically embodied, and spatially located in this way.  The Christian doctrine of the incarnation is that God did not give up any aspect of his divine nature, but "humbled himself" by taking on a human nature in addition to the already divine nature of the Son.  So, we might say that the non-physical component of Jesus, his soul, is the second person of the Trinity.  And this claim raises plenty of philosophical questions of its own.  For example, how do we reconcile that fact of Jesus' omniscience and impeccability with his being tempted?  If, as God, he is necessarily omniscient, how does he grow in wisdom?  If, as God, he cannot sin, how is he actually tempted? ... Questions for another blog entry...

But on the topic of God and Space, how could God's omniscience be expressed or contained in a human brain?  How can an unlimited quantity of knowledge fit in a limited number of neurons?  How do we explain God's omniscience in an "embodied" way? 

The Bible also describes God as being active in the world in ways that seem to imply spatial location.  For example, in Genesis the Spirit of God is described as "hovering over the waters."  What can that mean?  How does God, who is everywhere, hover anywhere? 

These are some of the questions that I hope to tackle...

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