Thursday, March 17, 2022

William G. T. Shedd on Jeremiah 23:24 being "tropical language" and the Problem of Absolutizing the Passage

  

Divine omnipresence means the presence of all things to God, rather than God’s presence to all things. They are in his presence, but he is not in their presence. When it is said, “Do not I fill heaven and earth, says the Lord” (Jer. 23:24), the language is tropical. If God were literally contained in the universe, the universe would be more immense than he is. (William G. T. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology: Complete and Unabridged, Volumes 1-3 [Reformed Retrieval, 2021], 221)

 

On Jer 23:24 itself, see, for e.g.:


Does Jeremiah 23:24 pose problems for LDS theology?


Psalm 139:7 and Latter-day Saint Theology


Brigham Young teaching God Fills the Immensity of Space (cf. Jeremiah 23:34 and Psalm 139:7)