Dist. 37, Part 1, Art. 1, Q. 2
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/1/d/37/q/bon-sent-I-d37-p1-a1-q2
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### Question II.
#### *Whether God is in all places.*

Secondly it is asked, whether God is everywhere locally, that is, whether he is in all places. And it appears that he is not.

1. Boethius in the book *On the Trinity*: "God is said to be everywhere in such a way, not that he is in every place, but that he cannot be in a place at all."

2. Likewise, this same thing appears by reason, since, as the Philosopher holds, place is more compared to the thing placed in the account of form; but God is the most excellent form: therefore with respect to him there is no form, therefore no place.

3. Likewise, it appears by another reason, because there is a fourfold condition of place in respect to the thing placed, namely to contain, to preserve, to measure, and to terminate. Place contains as a vessel, measures as a quantity, preserves as a nature, terminates as an end; but God according to none of these conditions is compared to place: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, the first and proper attribute of being in place is dimension, therefore what more recedes from dimension, is less in place; and what most [recedes], least [is in place]; and what altogether recedes, in no way is in place; but God is of this kind: therefore etc.

**On the contrary:**

1. Jeremiah, twenty-third: *Heaven and earth I fill*; but everything that is in place by filling it, is in place insofar as [there is] place.

2. Likewise, this appears by reason, since place, insofar as it is place, has a need toward the thing placed, that it be filled by it; but every creature [is] vanity, and vanity does not fill except through the presence of truth: therefore for this, that place be filled, it is necessary that God be present. But this being posited, God is posited to be in place, insofar as place is place.

3. Likewise, greater is the union of form to matter than of the thing placed to place; but form is not united to matter nor does it remain except through God's presence: therefore much less [is] the thing placed [united] to place. But since through God's presence form is united to matter, God is in every thing as nature: therefore since through God's presence the thing placed is united and preserved in place, God is in place, insofar as it is place.

4. Likewise, there is presence and simultaneity according to place and according to time; but God is most perfectly present to every thing: therefore according to place and time. But things which are present according to time, are in the same time: therefore also those which are present according to place, are in the same place: if therefore God is present to every place, God is in place, not only insofar as he is a thing, but also insofar as he is place.

### Conclusion.

> *God is in every place, not however circumscriptively, nor definitively, but according to excellence and by his presence supplying the indigence of place.*

**I respond:** It must be said that there is a threefold condition according to which the thing placed is compared to place. The first, according to which [the thing placed] is excelled, and this is the property of preservation; for thus the thing placed is in need of place, and place fulfills its indigence and conserves its nature, and according to this property only corporeal things are in place, and not spiritual things, since they do not receive influence from corporeal place.

Another is the property according to which the thing placed is equated and proportioned to place; and this is the property of commensuration, and according to this condition properly corporeal things are in place, since these alone are commensurable, whence they are circumscribed. Spiritual things, however, [are in place] less properly; for they are not [in place] commensuratively with respect to parts, yet they are definitively with respect to the whole. The third is the condition according to which the thing placed excels place, namely that by its presence it fills and supplies the indigence of place. For place without a thing placed is deprived and indigent, like the concavity of an eye without an organ.

Since therefore God is compared to no creature, neither according to the account of inferiority nor of equality, but of superiority and excellence; God is not in place as to the first and second property, but only as to the third, namely that by his presence he supplies the indigence of place. For the thing placed by its presence fills the emptiness of distance; but God by his presence fills the vanity of essence, and the former indeed cannot be without the latter.

From these the response to the objections is clear. For the reasons proving that God is in place, insofar as it is place, proceed according to the third condition, as is clear; but the reasons to the contrary [proceed] according to the first and second, namely of preservation and termination.