28. 1. God is infinite because he is intrinsic reality and manifestation, and all things in the universe have reality and manifestation from him. So far I have shown that God is one, that he is the Absolute, that he is the primary reality that underlies all things, and that all that exists, takes shape, and endures in the universe is from him. It follows then that he is infinite.

Just below [32] I will show that many phenomena in the created universe enable human reason to see the infinity of God. Yet although the human mind can use those phenomena to support an acknowledgment that the first entity or primary being is infinite, still it cannot come to know what the Infinite is like. The only way it can define the Infinite is to say that it is utterly without limits and self-sufficient, and is therefore the absolute and only substance. Because substance has no attributes without form, it is also the absolute and only form. What substance and form are in their full infinity, however, is not apparent. The human mind itself, even the most highly analytical and elevated mind, is finite; it cannot be rid of its own limitations. It will never have the capacity to see the infinity of God as it truly is, or God as he truly is. It can see God in a shadow from behind, as Moses was told to do when he begged to see God. He was put in a crevice in the rock and saw God's back (Exodus 33:20-23). "God's back" has as a general meaning the phenomena visible in the world and has as a specific meaning the things that are comprehensible in the Word.

It is obviously pointless then to aim to find out what God is like in his own underlying reality or in his own substance. It is enough to acknowledge him from finite, created things, in which he is infinitely present.

The person who goes farther than that could be compared to a fish hauled out into the air; or to a bird put in a vacuum pump, gasping as the air is pumped out, and soon expiring; or to a ship overcome by a storm, no longer responsive to the helm, drifting onto reefs and sandbanks. Something comparable happens to people who want to know the infinity of God from the inside and are not content to acknowledge it from the outside on good evidence.

We read that a philosopher among the ancients threw himself into the sea because in the mental light he had he could not envision or comprehend the eternity of the world. What if he had tried to see the infinity of God?

534. People who do not examine themselves are like people with a sickness that closes off their capillaries and therefore corrupts their blood, causing their limbs to go to sleep and atrophy, and resulting in severe chronic diseases because their humors, and therefore the blood that arises from them, are viscous, sticky, irritating, and acidic. People who do examine themselves, however, including the intentions of their will, are like people who are healed from these diseases and regain the vitality they felt when they were young.

People who examine themselves in the right way are like ships from Ophir completely filled with gold, silver, and precious stones; before they examined themselves, though, they were like barges loaded down with unclean freight, carting away the filth and excrement from city streets.

People who examine themselves deeply become like mines, whose walls all shine with ores of precious metals; before they do so, however, they are like foul-smelling swamps inhabited by serpents and poisonous snakes with glittering scales, and harmful insects with shiny wings.

People who do not examine themselves are like the dry bones in the valley; but after people have explored themselves they become like those same bones after the Lord Jehovih put sinews on them, brought flesh upon them, covered them with skin, and breathed spirit into them, and they came to life (Ezekiel 37:1-14).