When I gaze at the stars, I feel small. Beyond the light-noise that fills our nighttime skies are massive collections of stars: an estimated 10 trillion galaxies. Some physicists estimate there are 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars in the universe as a whole, which is probably a conservative estimate.[1]
When I gaze inwardly, with respect to the universe, toward planet earth, I am overwhelmed as well. There are so many complicated and troubling issues at play across the globe that I am prone to downplay the significance of my daily struggles, let alone my existence.
Do I matter? If so, in whose eyes do I matter (besides the eyes of others also trapped in this same insignificance)? There are those who flippantly tell me I am important to God. Really? With all the aforementioned enormous distractions, am I important to God? Does God care? Does God even exist? If God does exist, does he, she, or it have time for me?
I do not intend to go through an elaborate argument or proof of God’s existence herein. For a mathematical argument on the existence and nature of God, I recommend reading Phase 2 in Slices of God. For now I will pick up where that argument leaves off: with the infinitude of God.
The bottom line is this: God cannot exist if God is not infinite. God cannot be God if he, she, or it is not infinite. There is no such thing as a puny God, as the Hulk would have us believe.[2] Mathematically, either there is no God, or God is infinite. This may be intuitive to some, but it wasn’t to me.
As a child, it bothered me to ask God for anything, especially to spend time with me, since there were so many people in the world with much greater needs than my own. This perception clearly was not based on the infinitude of God. I was not taught that God did not have time for me; it was my lack of understanding of infinitude that held me back.[3]
God is not only infinite, but strangely so. I used to think that infinitude was just one of God’s qualities or characteristics. I grew up being taught about the omniscience, omnipotence, and the omnipresence of God as though they were unique characteristics. However, my friend, all of God’s qualities and characteristics lie inside this infinitude. Every characteristic or quality of God is infinite. Mathematically, it must be so.
The infinitude of God is such that there is always more than enough to go around. Any finite value subtracted from infinity still results in infinity. A.W. Tozer is quoted as having said, “An infinite God can give all of Himself to each of His children. He does not distribute Himself that each may have a part, but to each one He gives all Himself as fully as if there were no others.”[4]
The infinitude of God has at least the following personal implications . . .
I am important to God.
Each and every detail of my life is important to God.
God has an infinite amount of time for me.
God is infinitely accessible.[5]
Friend, do not think God has no time for you. God has an infinite amount of time just for you. In fact, God is dying to spend time with you.
-Sam Augsburger
[1] http://www.space.com/26078-how-many-stars-are-there.html
[2] A reference to The Avengers.
[3] I apologize for sounding like I now understand infinitude! I obviously do not, but simply imply that it was not on my radar for most of my life.
[4] A.W. Tozer in Ben C. Ollenburger, A Mind Patient and Untamed: Assessing John Howard Yoder’s Contributions to Theology, Ethics, and Peacemaking (Telford: Cascadia Publishing House, 2004), 218.
[5] A rephrasing of the infinitude of God by Owen Burkholder.
