The God of the Holy Bible is truly awesome. In some ways He is beyond human grasp. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isa. 55:9.
Infinite is He! “Great is our Lord,… His understanding is infinite.” [Psm. 147:5]. Let’s show the distinction between infinity, which is a number too big to count, and ordinary numbers. Countable numbers work in arithmetic. For example, a very large number like one trillion, when multiplied by the number three becoming three billion, in the same way as all counting numbers. Division works the same way.
Infinity by contrast is a number that can’t be counted! And so infinity can’t behave like counting numbers. Infinity is here represented by ∞. Mathematicians have shown that half of ∞ is still too big to count, so ∞/2 is still ∞. In fact we can divide or multiply ∞ by any countable number and we still have ∞. This is like His view of time: “…one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” [II Pet. 3:8]. He knows in detail an ∞ of intervals in any interval.
Addition and subtraction with ∞ show other oddities. Add to or subtract from ∞ any countable number, and we still have ∞. This is surely similar to our creator-savior Jesus. He is unchanging [Mal. 3:6], and none can add to Him, nor can any diminish Him. If we think of the true ∞ of love in God, and we divide it by 7 billion, the number of people on Earth; then the result is still ∞, meaning His love is still ∞ for each person. So God’s ∞ love is not diminished when shared with us individually. Praise God for that.
To try to get a pale reflection of the Lord’s nature, first consider that the counting numbers, positive and negative plus zero total to an ∞, called א0, Aleph zero by Georg Cantor, the master theorist of infinity. He showed that the next larger distinct kind of ∞ includes all the decimal numbers between the counting numbers, which he called א1, Aleph one. א1 is also the number of points in any 2D area, since a line can be drawn completely filling any rectangle, a line called Giuseppe Peano’s curve. Such lines can completely fill any 2D area, 3D solid, or any space with a limited number of higher dimensions. Since God is almighty [Gen. 17:1, Ezek. 10:5, Rev. 19:15] and all knowing; “…God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things.” [I John 3:20], He knows the location of every particle and wave in the א1 of points of all space, at all times. A minor reflection of this is the fact that He calls all the stars by name [Psm. 147:4] all ~100,000 billion billion of them! The galaxy below has only about 100 billion stars.
Even more remarkably God is not limited to spatial dimensions. “…the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain Him.” II Chron. 2:6 & I Kings 8:27. He operates inside and outsideof an ∞ of dimensions with infinite power, wisdom and perfect knowledge. Even in this we see only a miniscule part of His true nature. Jesus is truly a being of a totally different order — type.
Yet He who is beyond infinite, desires communion with us, and by His supernatural revelation, through His Holy Scriptures and by His ∞ Holy Spirit, He empowers communion, freely giving us the “∞ mind of Christ,” even though that ∞ mind moves through a limited human mind. Thank you Lord.