Where is God?

When things do not go well, then believing that one is not alone can help one maintain perspective. My favorite question to ask as such times was: “Where is God in all this?” But I have come to realize there is a fallacy in that question.

How Big Is God?

The fallacy is presuming that there are some events or places separate or unreachable by God. To say where God is, implies there are places or events where God is not. And that is the fallacy.

In Paul’s Letter to the Romans (8:38-39) he boasts of the pervasiveness of the love of God.

“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

I have celebrated communion in a submarine beneath the waves of the Pacific Ocean. The first astronauts on the moon celebrated communion. Everywhere one might go, God is already there.

Jesus is known, not as God looking down on us, but as Emmanuel, God with Us. God is here and now.

Therefore wherever one is and wherever a believer is God is there. When things are not going well, God is in all of that. When things are going well, God is in that too.

Considering Creation as described in Genesis, God must be at least as big as the whole of creation to be present in and with the whole of creation simultaneously and intimately involved with each and every subatomic particle.

Albert Einstein affirmed what he called Cosmic Theology. “The harmony of natural law reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection.”

How is God in this?

When life gets messy asking how God is in the experience helps one avoid panic and recognize God’s work even in the midst of the messiest of experiences.

Christians affirm that God holds all of Creation within God’s providence. Matthew’s Gospel reports Jesus having said: “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside of your Father’s care.” Knowing that one’s misfortune is part of a larger plan can be comforting.

Where is God not present?

If Hell is separation from God, and God is everywhere all the time, then Hell is no bigger than the part of a human mind that says that God is not omnipresent, that a particular aspect of an event is not of God. Hell is therefor no bigger than a bubble within human conscience.

Sin then is imagining that we can do something, that one might do anything apart from God.

Thus to make Hell disappear one need only recall that nothing in all creation can separate anyone from the love of God, one need only recall that the Holy Spirit is no further than one’s next breath, one need merely recognize that the Creator is manifest within all that is seen and within all that is unseen. There is nothing separate from God outside a moment of sinful imagination.

How Does God Communicate?

Some materialists note that theological models with God in Heaven separate from Creation lack a means of communication from Heaven to Creation. They point to the Elementary Particles Theory and note the absence of a method to communicate from outside or within Creation.

If God is present in all things, even down to the level of Elementary Particles, communication between God and Creation happens through all things at all times. All particles carry information about God. From our human vantage point, within Creation, God is within all Creation even within the most fundamental particles. There is no need for divine communications from Heaven to Earth because God is with us; Emanuel. And all of Creation is within God.

Conclusions

Since nothing can separate us from the love of God, and since Jesus is God with us, therefore God is at least as big as the whole of Creation and manifest in every component of Creation.

Therefore salvation is merely collapsing a bubble within a person’s consciousness that would pretend to exclude God from a part of one’s existence. The question “How is God in all this?” gently allows one to compress that bubble and experience the presence of God in the worst of situations yielding the answer that all of life is within divine providence.