29. 2. God is infinite because he existed before the world, before space and time came into being. The physical world has time and space. The spiritual world, on the other hand, lacks actual time and space, although it does have apparent time and space.

Time and space were introduced into both worlds for the sake of distinguishing one thing from another, large from small, many from few - one quantity from another, and one quality from another. Time and space allow our bodily senses to discern the objects they are sensing; and they allow our mental senses to discern the objects they are sensing - to be affected, to think, and to choose.

Units of time were introduced into our physical world by the spinning of the earth on its axis and its orbit from point to point along the zodiac. (The sun, the source of heat and light for this whole globe of lands and seas, only seems to be the cause of these cycles.) The result is the times of day: morning, afternoon, evening, and night; and the seasons of the year: spring, summer, fall, and winter. The times of day vary from light to dark; the seasons of the year vary from hot to cold.

Units of space are part of our physical world because the earth was formed into a globe composed of substances whose elements are differentiated from each other and also extended.

In the spiritual world, there are no physical units of space or corresponding units of time. Yet there appear to be. Apparent space and time follow the different states of mind that spirits and angels go through there. The units of spiritual time and space match the desires of their will and the resulting thoughts in their intellect. Apparent space and time, then, are real - they are predictably determined by one's state of mind.

[2] The general opinion on the state of souls after death, as well as of angels and spirits, is that they have no extension - they are not in space or time. This has led to the saying about souls after death that they are in limbo, and that spirits and angels are ghosts, which are thought of as ether, air, breath, or wind.

In fact, souls after death are substantial people who live together like people in the physical world, only with units of space and time that are determined by their states of mind. If the spiritual universe - destination of souls and home of angels and spirits - lacked its own space and time then it could be passed through the eye of a needle or compressed onto the tip of a single hair. This would be possible if there were no substantial extension there. Since there is substantial extension there, however, angels live among each other with clear and distinct boundaries, in fact with even clearer boundaries than people on earth do, where there is material extension.

Time in the spiritual world is not marked by days, weeks, months, and years, because the sun there does not seem to rise and set or to swing across the sky. It stands still in the east, halfway between the horizon and the point directly overhead. Because everything that is physical in our world is substantial in the spiritual world, there are units of space there. I will say more on this topic in the part of this chapter that deals with creation [75-80].

[3] From what I have just said, you can see that there are space and time limitations on each and every thing in both worlds; and that people have limitations not only to their bodies but even to their souls. The same goes for spirits and angels.

From all the above we can draw the conclusion that God is infinite or without limits As Creator, Shaper, and Maker of the universe, he gave everything a limit or a boundary. He did so by means of the sun that surrounds him. That sun consists of the divine essence that goes out as a sphere around him. In that sun and from it, the first limitedness occurs. Things are increasingly limited the closer they are to the lowest level of nature in the world. Since God was not created, in himself he is without limits, or infinite.

What is infinite may seem to us to be nothing, because we are finite and limited, and we base our thinking on things that are limited. If the limitations in our thought were taken away, we would see whatever was left as nothing. Yet the truth is that God is infinitely everything; of ourselves, we are relatively nothing.

21. 3. The underlying divine reality is intrinsic reality, and is also an intrinsic capacity to become manifest. Jehovah God is intrinsic reality because from eternity to eternity he is the I Am, the Absolute, and the first and only thing from which comes everything that exists and to which everything owes its existence. Because of this and nothing else he is the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last, and the Alpha and the Omega.

One cannot say that his underlying reality comes from himself, because coming from himself implies before and after, and therefore time, and time cannot apply to the infinite underlying reality that is described as existing from eternity. Coming from also either implies another god who is the real god, and then you have a god from a god; or it implies that God formed himself. In either case God would not be uncreated or infinite, because he would have boundaries and limitations that were imposed either by himself or by some other god.

From the fact that God is the intrinsic underlying reality, it follows that God is love in itself, wisdom in itself, and life in itself. It also follows that God is the Absolute from which all things come and to which all things are connected so that they may exist. God is God because he is life in itself, as the Lord's words in John 5:26 make clear. Likewise in Isaiah: "I, Jehovah, am the maker of all things. I alone stretch out the heavens. I extend the earth by myself"(Isaiah 44:24); and he alone is God, and there is no God except him (Isaiah 45:14, 21; see also Hosea 13:4).

God is not only the intrinsic underlying reality but is also an intrinsic capacity to become manifest. For unless the underlying reality is capable of manifesting, it is nothing. It is equally true that the capacity to become manifest is nothing without the underlying reality. Neither one can exist without the other. The same is true for substance unless it takes a form. A substance without a form has no properties or attributes, and something that has no quality is in fact nothing.

I speak specifically here of underlying reality and capacity to become manifest, not of essence and actual manifestation, because the relationship between underlying reality and essence is the relationship between something that comes before and something that comes afterward; the same goes for the capacity to become manifest and actual manifestation. What comes before is more universal than what comes afterward. The underlying divine reality has the attributes of infinity and eternity, but the divine essence and manifestation have the attributes of divine love and divine wisdom, and through them, omnipotence and omnipresence, which I will get to when it is their turn.