We say God is all-pervading, God is everywhere. God is everywhere means God is present at each and every point of the universe. Although God is present everywhere, yet it is not the case that God’s presence is more at some points of space and less at some other points of space. Rather we will say that God is equally present everywhere. We will say that God is wholly present, fully present, entirely present at each and every point of the universe. As the same God is present at each and every point of the universe, so the distance from any point of space to each and every other point of space should be zero, because the same God is present everywhere. One cannot be distant from one's own self. That the distance from any point of space to each and every other point of space is really zero has already been confirmed by science through the phenomenon of quantum entanglement.
But the above is only one type of entanglement e.g. spatial entanglement. Mystics have repeatedly written about this spatial entanglement through their doctrine of interconnectedness of everything. Here is one quote from Bertrand Russell:
“The doctrine of interpenetration, according to which different things are not really separate, but are so merely conceived by the analytic intellect, is to be found in every mystic, Eastern or Western, from Permenides to Mr. Bradley.”1
Here is another quote from a poem by Francis Thompson, a British poet:
“All things by immortal power,
Near and far
Hiddenly
To each other linked are,
That thou canst not stir a flower
Without troubling of a star.”2
Here both Russell and Thompson are talking about the phenomenon of spatial entanglement only. When you stir a flower here on earth, a distant star in the sky is also troubled, because all things by immortal power - here the flower on earth and there the star in the sky - are hiddenly linked to each other. The separateness between the two is apparent only, not real.
But if God is really there, then there should be another type of entanglement: the temporal entanglement. As in case of spatial entanglement there is no real space gap between any two points in space, so in case of temporal entanglement there should not be any real time gap between any two moments in time. Mystic Meister Eckhart (1260-1328) has written elaborately about this entanglement while discussing God and time. First I will present some quotes from his writings:
Quote 1: “All that God created six thousand years ago and even earlier, when He created the world, He creates all of them right now.”3
Quote 2: “There exists only the present instant... a Now which always and without end is itself new. There is no yesterday nor any tomorrow, but only Now, as it was a thousand years ago and as it will be a thousand years hence.”4
Quote 3: “The now wherein God made the world is as near this time as the now I am speaking in this moment, and the last day is as near this now as was yesterday”5
Quote 4 “All that happened a thousand years ago, the day of a thousand years ago, is no more remote in eternity than the moment in which I stand right now; again, the day which will come a thousand years from now, or in as many years as you can count, is no more distant in eternity than this very moment in which I stand presently.”6
From the above quotes it appears that as per Eckhart in God there is neither any yesterday nor any tomorrow, neither any past nor any future, but only the present instant.
In the first quote above Eckhart is saying that all that God created six thousand years ago and even earlier, when He created the world, He creates all of them right now. Here we can see that first he used the past tense and then changed to the present tense. What he meant to say by this is that what is a past moment for us is not really a past moment for God. For us the moment God created the world was six thousand years ago, but for God this moment of creation is actually the present moment. So for us there is a time gap of six thousand years between the moment of creation and the present moment, but for God there is no such time gap between these two moments. These two moments are the same moment for God. Here we will have to remember that Eckhart was from the 13th century and so naturally it was not possible for him to know anything about the big bang. However if he were alive today, he would have said that for God the big bang did not occur 13.8 billion years ago, rather it occurs right now. That means this time gap of 13.8 billion years is real for us human beings only, but it is not at all real for God.
Not only that, in the fourth quote above he is also saying that “…the day which will come a thousand years from now, or in as many years as you can count, is no more distant in eternity than this very moment in which I stand presently.” That means for God there will be no time gap between this present moment and any moment that will come in future.
What all this means is that for God there is only one single present moment and that single present moment contains within itself all the past moments as well as all the future moments. Whatever happens in the universe happens in that present moment only. For God the moment the universe has begun and the moment it will come to an end is actually the same moment, whereas for us human beings there will be a time gap of several billion years between these two moments.
It is not that Eckhart was the only person who had said such things about God. Before him St. Augustine had also said the same thing. Here is a relevant quote from Bertrand Russell:
“God is eternal, in the sense of being timeless; in God there is no before and after, but only an eternal present. God’s eternity is exempt from the relation of time; all time is present to Him at once.”7
Here also we see that St. Augustine is saying the same thing as Eckhart that in God there is no before and no after, but only an eternal present.
[Here I can also personally testify that what both St. Augustine and Meister Eckhart have written about God’s timelessness are true, because I personally have an experience of what God’s timelessness actually is. In the month of April 2009, on the last Sunday of that month, at about 8 pm, I had this experience of God’s timeless world. The first expression that came out of my mouth after having this experience was this: God has got no future. Atheists will readily agree, because as per them God does not exist and a non-existent God cannot naturally have any future. But they will be mistaken in thinking that, because I will again add: God has got no past. Actually God has got neither any past nor any future. God’s own world is really a very peculiar world, where there is neither any past moment nor any future moment. Those who think that after their death they will definitely go to heaven and live there eternally should think twice, because is it really possible for us human beings to live in a world where there is no future moment? We have been made in such a way that we have been accustomed to live in a world where there is both the past as well as the future. So how can it be possible for us to live in a world where there is no past, no future? So theologians should think seriously about it before proclaiming that as humans we have a heavenly after-life.]
So, if God is really there, then it must also be established that there is no real time gap between any two moments in time as it has already been established that there is no real space gap between any two points of space. This has also been established through the phenomenon of temporal entanglement. For this one can read the article “Quantum Weirdness Now a Matter of Time” by George Musser in the Quanta magazine here.8
One more point. Wheeler’s delayed choice experiment was successful only because whatever happens in the universe happens in one single moment only, this single moment being God’s eternal present moment.
Reference:
1. Book: Skeptical Essays, 1928 Edition, Chapter: Philosophy in twentieth century, Page 69.
2. Book: The Mistress of Vision, Poems (1913) by Francis Thompson (1859-1907)..
3. http://www.ellopos.net/theology/eckhart-quotes.asp?pg=3
4. http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/meistereck149156.html
5. http://www.azquotes.com/quote/588337
6. Book: Wandering Joy: Meister Eckhart's Mystical Philosophy,
By Reiner Schürmann, Page 58.
7. Book: History of Western Philosophy, Chapter: Saint Augustine’s Philosophy and Theosophy, Page 152, Simon and Schuster, New York.
8. https://www.quantamagazine.org/20160119-time-entanglement/