Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.
(Psalm 139:7-10)
Lord, you have been our dwelling place
in all generations.
Before the mountains were brought forth,
or ever you had formed the earth and the world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
(Psalm 90:1-2)
By omnipresence—also referred to as “ubiquity”—we mean that God is everywhere present in the fullness of His being. This allows Him to interact in any places at any times (even in multiple places simultaneously). Being in all locations present in the whole of His being, there is no place we can go and not be in His presence; this is a comfort for Christians and a torment to non-Believers. God is not spatial or dimensional in existence as we are; if He were, we would constantly be bumping our heads on Him. While it is beyond the scope of our understanding to work out how it is that God can be ubiquitous but act locally, we accept it in like manner as many other recalcitrant ideas: the Virgin Birth, the Incarnation, the ex nihilo Creation, etc.
A.W. Tozer expands on this in his book, The Knowledge of the Holy:
The doctrine of the divine omnipresence personalizes man’s relation to the universe in which he finds himself. This great central truth gives meaning to all other truths and imparts supreme value to all his little life. God is present, near him, next to him, and this God sees him and knows him through and through. At this point faith begins, and while it may go on to include a thousand other wonderful truths, these all refer back to the truth that God is, and God is here.
Other attributes we’ve discussed so far:
[This post is adapted from Blue Letter Bible’s Theological FAQs page.]