Medieval thought assumes that God’s will is omnipresent and omnipotent, thus necessitating that the physical world obey God’s will. In other words, God is believed to be omnipresent in the physical world. This is the reason behind God’s omniscience and Omni benevolence–God knows all of the things that exist at any time He might desire. However, this is also the reason that the physical world is wholly dependent upon God–it can never be otherwise.
One way to understand God’s omnipotence and omnipresence is to note that it doesn’t make any difference whether we call God “God” or” Almighty.” The concept of God is consistent throughout history. When people use the terms “God,” ” Almighty,” or “Lord,” it simply demonstrates that the concept of God is a consistent, unalterable concept, regardless of what people call Him. If the will of God were changed by our actions, we could say that there is a contradictory view of God–however, that would be a different matter altogether.
There is another way to view God’s omnipotence and omnipresence: as a kind of predicated reality. What are “probabilities”? Probability is a certain probability. For example, the chance that I’ll fall tomorrow is one hundred percent (if I’m falling, then the physical body is also falling), and the probability that I’ll catch a falling ball is one hundred percent (if I catch it, then the physical body is also catching it). These probabilities are independent of each other and independent of God–they’re independent of the physical world, which is why we don’t need God to show us the sky or the ocean to get an accurate reading.
If God does show us these things, then it follows that God is omnipotent. Again, this flies in the face of theistic rationalism. It’s widely believed that God is omniscient (knows all of the history and all of the details of every event that has happened in the entire universe), and omnipresent. But how can God be omnipotent and be present in the physical world at the same time? God is said to be omnipresent, but doesn’t necessarily have to be present at the same time in order to make sense of it. God can be everywhere at once, but if He is omnipotent he is supposed to be everywhere at the same time; and in that case it would be physically impossible for Him to be all at once everywhere.
Theists argue that such reasoning is necessary to avoid the problem of God’s omniscience and omnipresence. The problem, they say, is that God must be omnipresent and omnipotent in order for his Omni benevolence and omnipresence to make sense. And they further argue that God must have the mind of an omnipotent being in order for those concepts to make sense at all. This is because if God is omniscient and omnipresent, then nothing that happens to His creation will escape his knowledge. The problem, according to theists, is that theists have already defined the concept of God’s omniscience and omnipresence – and the problem isn’t what word you use, but what it covers.
For some of the problems with the Christian understanding of God’s omniscience and omnipresence are even more serious than the problems involved in defining God’s Omni benevolence and omnipresence. For example, when theists say that God is omniscient, they mean that He knows all the future events that could occur, but we don’t know what those events are. And if God knew all of the future events, then it follows that God must be omnipresent – which theists believe is impossible. God cannot be omnipresent because there is no place for Him to be.
Another problem with this view is that it renders the concept of God’s Omni benevolence and omnipresence irrelevant. If God can answer every question that you throw at Him, then how can anything else be real or important? If God can answer your questions, then there is no reason to expect Him to have omniscience or omnipotence – and these concepts are important to theists because they help them to define the universe and explain its workings. The problem is that theists do not feel they have an explanation for the truth of the world other than God. They simply say it is God’s will.
So how does theists deal with the problem of God’s Omni benevolence and omnipresence? They argue that whatever God’s Omni benevolence and omnipresence are, it doesn’t matter because they will always effect the physical laws regardless of the way that the universe happens to be. This sounds like circular reasoning, but theists say that it is perfectly acceptable because it is a necessary part of their religious faith.