Omnipresence and the Location of the Immaterial

Abstract

This chapter offers a broad taxonomy of models of divine omnipresence in the Christian tradition, both past and present, before examining that recently proposed by Hud Hudson and Alexander Pruss—ubiquitous entension—and flagging a worry with their account that stems from predominant analyses of the concept of ‘material object’. It then attempts to show that ubiquitous entension has a rich Latin medieval precedent in the work of Augustine of Hippo and Anselm of Canterbury, arguing that the model of omnipresence explicated by these Latin thinkers has the resources to avoid the noted worry by offering an alternative account of the divide between the immaterial and the material. In conclusion, a few alternative analyses of ‘material object’ are considered that make conceptual room for a contemporary Christian theist to follow suit in thinking that at least some immaterial entities are literally spatially located when relating to the denizens of spacetime.

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