How can God be closer to you than yourself?  The answer lies in appreciatingthe nature of what it means to be psychologically present to someone, including onself. An appreciation of personal identity and psychological presence can illumine the sense in which God is supremely present in our lives, indeed closer to us than we are. Our concern is the nature of this divine human proximity and what it is for someone to be indwelt by God. We assume the classic tenets about the God of Christianity who is the all- knowing, all-powerful, loving Creator of the cosmos. We also assume that persons have beliefs, emotions, desires, and sensations. They have a conscious and unconscious life. They act or are capable of acting in a world where they have a past and a future. Although these are not all necessary conditions for personhood, we assume that they are sufficient conditions for being a person. We now consider five respects in which persons may said not to be present to themselves.

(1) Self-assessment. I may have a radically distorted view of myself, believing that I am a great pianist. Not realizing that I am a bad pianist, there is a great gap between my beliefs about myself and who and what I am. I am truly out of touch with oneself. Regarding myself as a great pianist, does not make me one. This illustrates a way in which I fail to be present to who I am.

(2) Our projects. Our identity is partly constituted by what we choose to pursue, our central projects. I may desire to be a great pianist. To the extent that I am alive to this project to which I am deeply committed, I am close to myself or who I am. I may, at times, become bored with my project, and my attentiveness to it wanes. I temporarily lose touch with my chief aims and projects. I thereby fail to be present to myself insofar as I fail fully to appreciate my central goals.

There is a closeness that characterizes friendship. A friend may not sympathize with all of my goals. Nonetheless, a key feature of friendship involves more than acquaintance with at least some of our basic commitments. We expect friends not to be bored by the goals that shape our lives. A good friend remains distant from me insofar as he finds my projects to be of little interest, neither delighting in my success or grieving over my ills. We can be, in some sense, friends with ourselves when we care about our goals and projects, taking interest in our welfare, and avoiding self-destruction. In failing to give attention to ourselves, we fail to be fully present or close to ourselves. We fail to be friends to ourselves, or even interested in ourselves

(3) The unconscious. We have an unconscious life to the extent that we have beliefs and desires of which we are not consciously apprised  The existence of the unconscious allows us to account for much of our action when we are not consciously aware of the reasons for our activity. We become aware of the unconscious when we consciously alight upon certain beliefs we have been maintaining all along. Thus, after therapy, we may come to realize our resentment toward a relative. Hitherto we had never consciously thought of ourselves being resentful nor had we been fully aware of any ill we bore
towards him. Our lack of acquaintance with our unconscious life, implies our distance from a considerable sphere of our existence.
(4) Memory. My personality or identity is largely constituted by my memories of my past. When my memories are distorted or lost, I am less present to who I am, to my identity. I can endure over time as a self despite vast changes, but who I am is inseparable from who I have been. I am the person who used
to do such and such and suffered this and that.

(5) The future. Aristotle believed that our happiness involved matters stretching far beyond our individual, current states. Whether or not we have truly flourish, and my be justly considered happy in the full sense, depends in part upon the eventual success of our projects. Imagine if I have every reason to live many years but have no conception of what will happen to me. Perhaps I live only for the moment. Such a life is truncated in an important respect. As creatures who live in time, we have a future. We may have been guilty of living in and for the future, neglecting the importance of the present moment. In doing so, we become rather remote, inattentive or even oblivious to who we are. Our inattention to what we may reasonably anticipate, alienates us from who we are. There is a time for the
spontaneity that acts without forethought. On the other hand, to act without any forethought, to move only on the basis of impulse or whim, is to succumb to meaningless drift.
Nothing exists apart from God’s omniscient knowing and omnipotent willing. God’s creative and conserving power is intimately present to us in every aspect of our lives. Meister Eckhart affirmed ‘God is closer to me than I am to myself” (German Sermon 69. M. O. C. Walsh tr., Meister Eckhart: Sermons &
Treatises Vol. II, London, 1981, p. 165). Considering the closeness of God to us over against our closeness to ourselves, we know that our entire being is transparent to the omniscient
God. Our lives are entirely and perfectly present to God. We may ask whether God is as close to sinners (the godless) as to saints (the godly). . God is closer to both than they are to themselves. God does not love the godless  less than the godly. Both are close to God’s heart, and have no existence apart it. God is present to both in the respect in which he is present all that exists. Although God knows, loves and conserves both in existence, there are, nonetheless, some important differences between God’s presence with the godless and his indwelling presence in the godly.

The godly and the godless may differ in their own remoteness from themselves. I may be close to you in many respects and yet you have as little interest in me as you have of yourself. One’s godlessness is related to one’s false image of one’s relational existence to one’s self, others and God. There is a godless indifference to the pain and suffering that the godless inflict on others. God may be close to the godless, knowing both what they do and think, but the godless are as indifferent and irresponsible in their action as they are toward God. The godly are more in touch with who they are, what they have been, what they will be. The saints Bernard and Francis knew themselves as creatures of a loving and beloved God. There is a greater closeness or at least receptiveness for this closeness between the godly and God than between the godless and God. The godless may know of God, but do not enjoy him. God is close to the godless, but not as beloved friend and joy.  There is a radical difference the God-godless closeness and the indwelling closeness of God.

We can understand this difference in terms of human freedom. One’s closeness to you may be measured in part by the ability of that one’s to act in your life. It is further measured by one’s actual interaction with you. The godless one freely refuses to recognize God’s love, and fails to enjoy God’s friendship. God respects human freedom, and will not violate our choice to live as though he does not exist. Thus, God may not be close to the plans of the godless in that these plans are conceived and carried out with relentless disregard of God and his justice. The godless may be close to God’s heart, but their plans are not close to the mind and heart of God. The godly and the godless differ in the kind of closeness they share. God is close to the godly in the reciprocity of friendship. Jesus, in John’s Gospel, says that his followers are to be one with him as he and his father are one. Part of what God’s indwelling means is to have the oneness of friendship and reciprocal enjoyment with God. The godly are those in whom we can recognize the activity of God. The godly communicate the closeness of God’s love, joy and goodness. The “godliness” of the saints brings us close to God. The ungodliness of the wicked bespeaks the absence of God. The more we resemble the vain pride of godless, the more remote we become from a proper sense of God and self