Abstract

This article argues that the clarification and modification of some of our common-sense notions of “place” and “object” can shed light on controverted issues in the history of theology: how God is present in corporate worship; how the risen Christ is “really present” during the Lord’s Supper; and how the believer is really, and not merely metaphorically in union with Christ. Key distinctions discussed include the local, circumscriptive, and repletive modes of presence of an object or person; and the distinction between an empirical (or, “molecular”) self and an extended self.