According To The Teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas
Thus as efficient cause God is present in a more perfect and complete way in the world of spirits than in that of bodies; He is more present to the angels than to men; to rational and living beings than to irrational ones, and those deprived of life; to the just than to sinners.
This is the clear teaching of Pope St. Gregory the Great: "God is everywhere, and whole and entire everywhere, for He is in contact with all things, even though He has for different things a different contact. With insensible creatures it is a contact which gives being without life; with animals His contact gives being, life and sensation, without intelligence; with human and angelic natures, His contact is such as to give at once being, life, sensation and intelligence; and thus, although He is always the self-same God, yet He is in contact divinely with creatures mutually unlike one another." (St. Gregory, in Ezech., lib. I., Hom, viii., n. 16.)
St. Fulgentius says: "God is not similarly present in all things; for although He is present everywhere by His power, He is by no means present everywhere by His grace." And St. Bernard: "God Who is everywhere, and equally so by His simple substance, is notwithstanding present with reasonable creatures differently than with others; He is also present in the good, differently than in the bad. So also He is present in unintelligent creatures in such a manner, that they do not attain to possess Him, as reasonable beings may by their knowledge; but only good ones may possess Him by love, in whom alone He is present by union of will." (St Bernard, Hom, iii., super Evang., Missus est.)
How can we arrive at an idea of these different grades of God's presence? If the Divine substance were extended and divisible, we might understand how it could be present in this and that object, in proportions varying as do the things themselves, to a greater degree in larger beings, and to a lesser in smaller ones. St. Thomas furnishes us with a solution of this problem, when he says: "There is one common and ordinary mode of presence, according to which God is present in all things by His essence, His power and His presence, namely, as the cause is present in the effects which participate in His goodness." (St. Thomas, Summa Theologica, I., q. xliii., a. 3.)
Thus as efficient cause God is present in a more perfect and complete way in the world of spirits than in that of bodies; He is more present to the angels than to men; to rational and living beings than to irrational ones, and those deprived of life; to the just than to sinners.
This is the clear teaching of Pope St. Gregory the Great: "God is everywhere, and whole and entire everywhere, for He is in contact with all things, even though He has for different things a different contact. With insensible creatures it is a contact which gives being without life; with animals His contact gives being, life and sensation, without intelligence; with human and angelic natures, His contact is such as to give at once being, life, sensation and intelligence; and thus, although He is always the self-same God, yet He is in contact divinely with creatures mutually unlike one another." (St. Gregory, in Ezech., lib. I., Hom, viii., n. 16.)
St. Fulgentius says: "God is not similarly present in all things; for although He is present everywhere by His power, He is by no means present everywhere by His grace." And St. Bernard: "God Who is everywhere, and equally so by His simple substance, is notwithstanding present with reasonable creatures differently than with others; He is also present in the good, differently than in the bad. So also He is present in unintelligent creatures in such a manner, that they do not attain to possess Him, as reasonable beings may by their knowledge; but only good ones may possess Him by love, in whom alone He is present by union of will." (St Bernard, Hom, iii., super Evang., Missus est.)
How can we arrive at an idea of these different grades of God's presence? If the Divine substance were extended and divisible, we might understand how it could be present in this and that object, in proportions varying as do the things themselves, to a greater degree in larger beings, and to a lesser in smaller ones. St. Thomas furnishes us with a solution of this problem, when he says: "There is one common and ordinary mode of presence, according to which God is present in all things by His essence, His power and His presence, namely, as the cause is present in the effects which participate in His goodness." (St. Thomas, Summa Theologica, I., q. xliii., a. 3.)
