God With Us Barth, Pannenberg, and the Integration of Trinity and Omnipresence

Hertenstein argues that the distinctive resources of Christian doctrine offer a way beyond the contradictions among contemporary accounts of omnipresence, many of which depend upon philosophical commitments, spatial categories, or definition of God by reference to created terms. Examining the Christian tradition, he finds a historical trajectory toward the synthesis of the concept of omnipresence with the personal and relational terms of the doctrine of the Trinity that means that omnipresence is to be seen as an absolute attribute that has a relational term toward creation. The author then takes up the works of Karl Barth and Wolfhart Pannenberg as developing this integration of the Trinity and omnipresence and the absolute aspect of omnipresence defined by trinitarian doctrine. From these proximate and remote sources, Hertenstein develops a fuller, constructive account of omnipresence in its absolute and relative aspects that embraces the diversity of biblical and theological witness.