Omnipresence

God is an infinite sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.

Meister Eckhart Cited in Mystical Hours

Br. Teasdale includes these words of explanation and understanding for us:

“This aphorism is from the twelfth century Latin hermetic work called the Book of the Twenty Four Philosophers, and it has appeared in many versions ever since it first surfaced. St. Bonaventure, the Francisican of the thirteenth century, incorporates it in his mystical writings Itinerarium mentis in Deum, or The Soul’s Journey into God.

This metaphor for the Absolute has proven to be effective and powerful in communicating the mystery of the Source. Every place is the center because God is an infinite intelligible sphere– totally unlimited and undetermined.

Wherever the Divine is, that is the center. In some visions of the metaphor, the word intelligible is employed instead of the word infinite. This means that something of God can be understood, but just as the circumference is ungraspable, much of the divine is beyond our comprehension.” 

When I first encountered this phrase or this mystical teaching, I was perplexed and astonished by it! What sense can I make of it? What is the rationale behind it? And so on through a series of other such useless questions! 

Many mystical and metaphysical statements are cryptic …They are not intended to be logical or become statements that begs for our analysis. They are metaphorical descriptions of God’s omnipresence, or of the Allness of God. They are to be accepted as belonging to a more mystical world view, not to any form of strict theology.

For too long, or so it seems to me, there is a liberal and/or agnostic bias towards the exclusive, rational, and the logical that tries valiantly to define and confine the concept of God; To conveniently place God into terms that are easier to comprehend… or dismiss!  

Yet, in an ultimate sense, God, in its entirety and in its complexity, is unknowable, beyond the ken or scope of human understanding… and that is just alright with me!

Mystery and the sense of awe or wonder properly attend any notion or understanding of divinity or God. 

Such spaciousness protects us from the efforts of rational reductionism.

It prevents us from falling into the trap of religious authoritarians who promote themselves as knowing God’s mind and ultimate purposes, so they can present themselves as a modern Messiah or “want to be”  enlightened leader!