Oxford Handbook of Omnipresence

The idea that something can be present at every place has engendered much discussion both in the past and at present. This Handbook explores the notion of omnipresence beyond its usual context as a divine attribute, seeking to understand the concept using contemporary philosophical tools.

List of contents

• Introduction


• Part I: Ancient Perspectives


• 1: Richard Neels: Heraclitus' Theology: A Case Study of Divine Omnipresence in Early Greek Thought


• 2: Barbara M. Sattler: All-Pervading or at the Edge of the Universe: Omnipresence and Panpsychism in Plato and Aristotle


• 3: Gretchen Reydams-Schils: The Omnipresence of the Stoic Divine Active Principle in Matter


• 4: Vito Limone and Francesca Simeoni: God's Omnipresence in Jewish and Christian Platonism: from Philo to Origen


• 5: Svetla Slaveva-Griffin: The Omnipresence of Plotinus's One in its Emanations


• Part II: Medieval Perspectives


• 6: Scott MacDonald: Augustine on God's Presence in Creation


• 7: Brian Leftow: Anselm on Omnipresence


• 8: Jeffrey E. Brower: Aquinas on Divine Omnipresence, Spatial Location, and Action at a Distance


• 9: Thomas M. Ward: Everywhere Thrice: Scotus and Ockham on God's Existence in Creatures


• 10: Rachel J. Smith: Omnipresence in the Medieval Mystical Tradition


• Part III: Modern Perspectives


• 11: Johannes Stoffers SJ: Renaissance Neoplatonic Thought, Scholastic Tradition and Negative Theology: Cusanus on God's Constitutive Presence in all Things


• 12: Christopher Shields: Everywhere and Nowhere: Suárez on the Immensity of God


• 13: Edward Slowik: Divine Omnipresence in Rationalist Theories in the 17th-18th Centuries


• 14: Ryan Keating and Charles Taliaferro: Omnipresence According to the English Thinkers of the 17th-19th Centuries


• 15: Douglas Hedley: Divine Omnipresence in the German Idealists


• 16: Anne Käfer: The Ubiquitous and Incarnated God. Omnipresence in Friedrich Schleiermacher


• Part IV: Further Perspectives


• 17: Sandro Gorgone and Aldo Bisceglia: Presence and Absence of God. The Trace of Heidegger's Last God and Marion's Iconic Turn


• 18: Donald Wayne Viney and Daniel A. Dombrowski: Divine Omnipresence in Process Theism


• 19: Mark P. Hertenstein: Absolute Triune Omnipresence: The Contributions of Barth and Pannenberg


• 20: Vera Tripodi: Omnipresence in the Feminist Philosophy of Religion


• Part V: Other Religions


• 21: Olga L. Lizzini: Divine Omnipresence in the Arabic-Islamic Intellectual Tradition


• 22: Samuel Lebens: On the Locations of God: Jewish Approaches to Omnipresence


• 23: Elisa Freschi: Omnipresence from an Ontological to a Relational Concept, from Nyaya to Visistadvaita Vedanta


• 24: Jessica Frazier: Omnipresence as Ultimate Ground: Power and Pervasion in Srinivasa's Medieval Indian Philosophy


• 25: Monima Chadha: Omnipresence of Karma and Causality in the Buddhist Universe


• 26: Jea Sophia Oh: Reverencing the Triune Potentials of Heaven, Earth, and Human Becomings: Relocating the Divine Immanence via Eastern Learning


• Part VI: Recent Developments


• 27: Joseph Jedwab: God as Derivatively Omnipresent: Some Non-Occupation Accounts


• 28: Ross D. Inman: God as Fundamentally Omnipresent: An Occupation Account


• 29: Martin Pickup: Omnipresence and Divine Presence in the Eucharist


• 30: Katherine Sonderegger: The Omnipresence of Almighty God: A Theological Account


• Part VII: New Directions


• 31: Sam Cowling and Ley David Elliette Cray: Omnipresence and Mathematical Reality


• 32: Ben Page: Omnipresence and Special Presence


• 33: Joshua Rasmussen: The God in All: How Constitution Theology Can Illuminate the Divine Nature


• 34: Dean Zimmerman: Divine Location and the Inheritance of Spatial Structure


• 35: Aaron J. Cotnoir: Omnipresence: Mereology and Simplicity

About the author

Anna Marmodoro is the Leonard and Elizabeth Eslick Professor of Philosophy at Saint Louis University and an Honorary Professor of Philosophy at Durham University, where she held the Chair of Metaphysics between 2016 and 2024. Previously she was a Junior and then Official Fellow in Philosophy at Corpus Christi College, University of Oxford. Marmodoro specializes primarily in ancient philosophy and contemporary metaphysics. Her latest books are Properties in Ancient Metaphysics (2023) and Forms and Structure in Plato's Metaphysics (2021). She is currently working on a new monograph titled: Parmenidean Essentialism. She is also the co-editor of Dialogoi: Ancient Philosophy Today.

Damiano Migliorini specialises in three main research areas: analytical philosophy of religion, Trinitarian theology, and gender studies. He has published monographs, edited books, and journal articles in all these areas. He received his PhD in Philosophy from the Università degli Studi di Verona (Italy) in 2019, and his Habilitation (Abilitazione Scientifica Nazionale) in Theoretical Philosophy in 2023. He is currently an affiliated researcher at ISSR 'Italo Mancini' of Università degli Studi di Urbino while also teaching philosophy at high school level. He is also a member of the editorial board of two academic journals: Segni e Comprensione and Nuovo Giornale di Filosofia della Religione.

Ben Page is a master of Divinity at Eton College and a retained lecturer in Philosophy at Pembroke College, University of Oxford. He primarily works on a diverse range of topics in philosophy of religion and metaphysics, although has published in other areas such as medieval philosophy and meta-ethics. He is the author of Modelling the Divine (forthcoming), and his research has appeared in Philosophical Studies, Faith and Philosophy, Religious Studies, Vivarium, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, Res Philosophica, TheoLogica, and The International Journal for Philosophy of Religion.

Summary

The idea that something can be present at every place has engendered much discussion both in the past and at present. This Handbook explores the notion of omnipresence beyond its usual context as a divine attribute, seeking to understand the concept using contemporary philosophical tools.

Product details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Release: 03.06.2025
• EAN: 9780198875314
• ISBN: 978-0-19-887531-4
• No. of pages: 736
• Series: Oxford Handbooks
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Philosophy > General, dictionaries; Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Religion: general, reference works; PHILOSOPHY / Religious, RELIGION / History, PHILOSOPHY / Metaphysics, RELIGION / Philosophy, History of Religion, Philosophy: metaphysics & ontology, Philosophy: metaphysics and ontology, Philosophy of religion