Of the four most considerable sects, the Stoics and the Platonicians endeavoured to reconcile the jarring interests of reason and piety. They meditated, however, on the divine nature, as a very curious and important speculation and, in the profound inquiry, they displayed the strength and weakness of the human understanding. These defective notions are confessed by Gibbon, a writer not disposed to undervalue their attainments: 'The philosophers of Greece deduced their morals from the nature of man, rather than from that of God. The Deity by them was considered not so much an intelligent Being, as an animating power, diffused throughout the world, and was introduced into their speculative system to account for the motion of that passive mass of matter, which was supposed coeval, and indeed coexistent, with himself.

To a large proportion of those who hold a distinguished rank among the ancient theistical philosophers, the idea of the personality of the Deity was in a great measure unknown. Some striking passages on the ubiquity of the divine presence may be found in the writings of some of the Greek philosophers, arising out of this notion, that God was the soul of the world but their very connection with this speculation, notwithstanding the imposing phrase occasionally adopted, strikingly marks the difference between their most exalted views, and those of the Hebrew prophets on this subject. Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? Do not I fill heaven and earth, saith the Lord? Am I a God at hand, saith the Lord, and not a God afar off?' 'Thus saith the Lord, Behold, heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool.' 'Behold, heaven, and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee.' 'Though he dig into hell, thence shall my hand take him though he climb up into heaven, thence will I bring him down and though he hide himself in the top of Carmel, I will search and take him out from thence.' 'In him we live, and move, and have our being.' 'He filleth all things.' 'Whither shall I go from thy Spirit, or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up to heaven, thou art there if I make my bed in hell, behold thou art there if I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. The statement of this doctrine in the inspired records, like that of all the other attributes of God, is made in their own peculiar tone and emphasis of majesty and sublimity. That attribute of God by which he is present in all places.

McClintock and Strong's Bible Encyclopedia International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

O.m.f.o. omnipresence