God as Derivatively Omnipresent

Abstract Work on divine omnipresence in contemporary analytic philosophy of religion draws a pair of distinctions between basic and derivative accounts, and occupation and non-occupation accounts. Physical objects are paradigm examples of objects that are somewhere. And they are, in the basic sense, somewhere because they occupy regions. So, the basic account says that, in the basic sense, God is everywhere. And the occupation account says that, in the basic sense, God is everywhere because God occupies every region. Any derivative account, by contrast, says that, in a derived sense, God is everywhere. And any non-occupation account says that, in either the basic or a derived sense, God is everywhere because God bears some non-occupation relation to every region. The chapter considers various versions of the occupation account and various non-occupation accounts, and argues that, in the basic sense, God is aspatial, but, in a derived sense, God is everywhere.