A Minute with Aquinas

AQUINAS
Whether God is everywhere? (Summa Theologica Part 1, Question 8, Article 2, Corpus)

(it’s something you’ve probably wondered… where is God? Of course, Jesus (God) is in the

Eucharist but what about in our everyday lives? Where can we find him? Is He everywhere? Here’s what St. Thomas has to say about this question.)

I answer that, Since place is a thing, to be in place can be understood in a twofold sense; either by way of other things—i.e. as one thing is said to be in another no matter how; and thus the accidents of a place are in place; or by a way proper to place; and thus things placed are in a place. Now in both these senses, in some way God is in every place; and this is to be everywhere. First, as He is in all things giving them being, power and operation; so He is in every place as giving it existence and locative power. Again, things placed are in place, inasmuch as they fill place; and God fills every place; not, indeed, like a body, for a body is said to fill place inasmuch as it excludes the co-presence of another body; whereas by God being in a place, others are not thereby excluded from it; indeed, by the very fact that He gives being to the things that fill every place, He Himself fills every place.

—Selected and annotated by Dave Palmer, Guadalupe Radio Network