Where is God?

When Richard returns from Ireland, both he and Carlisle express confidence that God can and will defend Richard in the possession of his throne.

Carlisle is certain, at least, that God can defend Richard:

Fear not, my lord: that Power that made you king
Hath power to keep you king in spite of all.
(III.ii.27-28)

There is some caution, though, in Carlisle's speech. It is possible for men to neglect the means that God offers, to refuse "Heaven's offer...the proffered means of succor and redress."

Richard is confident--too confident we would say, knowing the final outcome--that God will certainly preserve him in his throne no matter what:

Not all the water in the rough rude sea
Can wash the balm off from an anointed king;
The breath of worldly men cannot depose
The deputy elected by the Lord:
For every man that Bolingbroke hath press'd
To lift shrewd steel against our golden crown,
God for his Richard hath in heavenly pay
A glorious angel: then, if angels fight,
Weak men must fall, for heaven still guards the right.
(III.i.54-62)

Richard is God's anointed, the "deputy elected by the Lord." If this is so, then no moral man can depose him, for "heaven still guards the right." Yet Richard is wrong. God does not defend him and this becomes increasingly apparent to Richard as the scene goes on.

(After Richard is deposed and made to walk through London and follow after Bolingbroke, the Duke of York tells his wife that "heaven hath a hand in these events, to whose high will we bound our calm contents" (V.ii.37-38).