animate creation, in the wicked as in the devout, in the church as he does in Christ. Creatures
differ depending on the manner in which God indwells them. The nature of creatures is
determined by their relation to God. Therefore, though all creatures reveal God, they do so in
differing degrees and along different lines. “With the pure you show yourself pure; and with the
wicked you show yourself perverse” (Ps. 18:26 nrsv). God dwells in all creatures through his being,
but in no one other than Christ does the whole fullness of deity dwell bodily [Col. 2:9]. In Christ
he dwells uniquely: by personal union. In created beings God dwells according to the measure of
their being: in some in terms of nature, in others in terms of justice, in still others in terms of grace
or of glory. There is endless diversity in order that all of them together might reveal the glory of
God.
It is not much to our advantage to deny God’s omnipresence. He makes it felt in our heart and
conscience. He is not far from any of us. What alone separates us from him is sin. It does not
distance us from God locally but spiritually (Isa. 59:2). To abandon God, to flee from him, as Cain
did, is not a matter of local separation but of spiritual incompatibility. “It is not by location but
by incongruity that a person is far from God.”91 Conversely, going to God and seeking his face
does not consist in making a pilgrimage but in self-abasement and repentance. Those who seek
him, find him—not far away, but in their immediate presence. For in him we live and move and
have our being. “To draw near to him is to become like him; to move away from him is to become
unlike him.”92
Do not think, then, that God is present in certain places. With you he is such as you have been.
What is the sort of person which you have been? He is good, if you have been good; and he seems
evil to you if you have been evil; a helper if you have been good, an avenger if you have been bad.
There you have a judge in your own heart. When you want to do something bad, you withdraw
from the public and hide in your house where no enemy may see you; from those parts of the house
that are open and visible you remove yourself to go into your own private room. But even here in
your private chamber you fear guilt from some other direction, so you withdraw into your heart
and there you meditate. But he is even more deeply inward than your heart. Hence, no matter
where you flee, he is there. You would flee from yourself, would you? Will you not follow yourself
wherever you flee? But since there is One even more deeply inward than yourself, there is no place
where you may flee from an angered God except to a God who is pacified. There is absolutely no
place for you to flee to. Do you want to flee from him? Rather flee to him.93
Unity
[196] The last of the incommunicable attributes is God’s oneness, differentiated into the unity of
singularity and the unity of simplicity. By the first we mean that there is but one divine being, that
in virtue of the nature of that being God cannot be more than one being and, consequently, that
