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Dear Father Angelo,

I wanted to ask you if it is correct to say that we are in God and that God is in us.

Or do we risk slipping into pantheism?

I premise that I do not think that God is the Universe, but that through the Mystical Body we exist in God.

Thank you and please remember me in your prayers.

Answer from the priest

Dear friend,

1. The expression you indicated is correct if understood properly.

God can be in us and we can consider ourselves in God in two ways: from a natural standpoint and from a supernatural standpoint.

2. From a natural standpoint, God is everywhere.

It is written in the Old Testament: “Where can I go from your spirit? From your presence, where can I flee? If I ascend to the heavens, you are there; if I lie down in Sheol, there you are.” (Ps 139:7-8).

Saint Paul testifies to this truth at the Areopagus in Athens: “The God who made the world and all that is in it… is not far from any one of us. For ‘In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:24.27-28).

3. Saint Thomas, summarizing the common thought, says that God – from this natural standpoint – is present in all things in three ways:

– by his power, because all things, spiritual and material, are subject to him;

– by his presence or infinite knowledge by which everything is constantly before him, including the secrets of hearts;

– and finally by his essence, that is, by his creative and conserving virtue, through which he maintains every reality in existence. (Cf. Summa Theologica, I, 8, 3).

God is so united to every reality that, if he ceased his conserving action, every creature would immediately return to the nothingness from which it was drawn.

Theologians give a single name to this triple presence and call it the presence of immensity to distinguish it from another, new and of supernatural order, which occurs in the souls of the righteous, to which the name of indwelling is given.

4. As you see, we cannot speak of pantheism because God does not identify with things, but it simply means that they – perfectly distinct from God – have a deep relationship with him.

5. God can be present in us in another way, far more sublime because it is supernatural: We speak of the personal presence of God in those who enjoy the sanctifying grace.

Jesus explicitly speaks of this new presence in the Gospel of John when he says: “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him” (Jn 14:23).

Here he announces two presences: that of the Father and his own. But this dual presence is essentially linked to the Holy Spirit, to the divine love that is infused in us: “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always… you know it, because it remains with you, and will be in you.” (Jn14:16-17).

It is a presence linked to the state of grace. Jesus indeed said: “Whoever loves me will keep my word”

When he says “We will come” Jesus refers not only to gifts, however great and of a supernatural order, like that of grace, but speaks of the coming of the divine Persons themselves of the Father and the Son.

And he makes clear that the divine Persons will be present permanently and not just transiently because he says: “[We will] make our dwelling with him.” As if to say they will always dwell there, at least as long as the one who has received them loves them by observing their commandments, therefore remaining righteous, in a state of grace.

To indicate this new way of being present, different from the natural one, theologians and also the magisterium of the Church speak of the indwelling of the Most Holy Trinity in the hearts of the righteous.

6. Similarly here too we cannot speak of pantheism because this presence of God is distinctly separate from nature and is tied to grace, so much so that those not in grace cannot enjoy this presence.

With the hope that you may live and experience the graciousness of the indwelling presence, which is a kind of prelude to eternal life, I bless you and gladly remember you in my prayers.

Father Angelo