The knowledge of the Holy - God's Infinitude

Infinitude is beyond our comprehension

"Of all that can be thought or said about God, His infinitude is the most difficult to grasp. Even to conceive of it would appear to be self-contradictory, for such conceptualization requires us to undertake something which we know at the outset we can never accomplish. Yet we must try, for the Holy Scriptures teach that God is infinite..." (pp. 43-44).

"Infinitude means limitlessness, and it is obviously impossible for a limited mind to grasp the Unlimited...We are trying to envision a mode of being altogether foreign to us, and wholly unlike anything we have known in our familiar world or matter, space and time" (p. 44).

Careless Usage

"Unfortunately the word infinite has not always been held to its precise meaning, but has been used carelessly to mean simply much or a great deal, as when we say that an artist takes infinite pains with his picture...Properly, the word can be used of no created thing, and of no one but God" (p. 45).

Infinite is beyond measure

"When we say that God is infinite we mean that He knows no bounds. Whatever God is and all that God is, He is without limit...Again, to say that God is infinite is to say that He is measureless. Measurement is the way created things have of accounting for themselves...Our concepts of measurement embrace mountains and men, atoms and stars, energy, numbers, speed, but never God...these tell of degrees and there are no degrees in God. All that He is is without growth or addition or development. Nothing in God is less or more, or large or small" (pp. 45-46).

Is there more to God than we know?

"In the awful abyss of the divine being may lie attributes of which we know nothing and which can have no meaning for us, just as the attributes of mercy and grace have no personal meaning for seraphim or cherubim...So there may be, and I believe there surely are, other aspects of God's essential being which He has not revealed...These hidden facets of God's nature concern His relation to none but Himself" (p. 46).

How does God being infinite help us?

"But God's infinitude belongs to us and is made known to us...Yet, just what does it mean to us beyond the mere wonder of thinking about it?...Because God's nature is infinite, everything that flows out of it is infinite also...How completely satisfying to turn from our limitations to a God who has none" (pp. 46-47).

The gift of eternal life in Christ Jesus is as limitless as God...The mercy of God is infinite too: 'Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound' (Rom. 5:20). Abounding sin is the terror of the world, but abounding grace is the hope of mankind...sin...has its limits...but God's 'much more' introduces us to infinitude. Against our deep creature-sickness stands God's infinite ability to cure" (p. 47).

God's love in the light of His infinitude

"The Christian witness through the centuries has been that 'God so loved the world...'; it remains for us to see that love in the light of God's infinitude. His love is measureless...it is boundless. It has no bounds because it is...a facet of the essential nature of God. His love is something He is...love that can enfold the whole created world and have room for ten thousand times ten thousand worlds beside" (p. 47).