32. 5. From many things in the world, enlightened reason can see the infinity of God. I will list a number of things that human reason can view as evidence of God's infinity.

(a) In the entire created universe, no two things can possibly be the same. It is impossible for any two things to be identical at any given point in time, as human scholarship and reasoning have seen and verified. Yet the substantial and physical things in the universe viewed one by one add up to an infinite number. Neither can the world have two identical situations over time. As you can see from the wobbling of the earth caused by the misalignment of the axis to the poles, the earth never comes back to the same spot.

This is also provable from human faces. In the whole world, not one face exists that is the same as another or similar in every way. Nor will there ever be two identical faces to eternity. Infinite variety like this could occur only as the result of God the Creators infinity.

[2] (b) No one's character is completely like another's. As the saying goes, there are as many opinions as there are people. Therefore no mind, that is, no will and intellect, is the same as another or similar in every way. As a result, no one's speech is identical to anyone else's, either in tone or in the thought behind it. Nor does anyone's action copy another's to a T, either in manner or in the emotion and inclination behind it. This infinite variety as well is like a mirror in which we can see the infinity of God the Creator.

[3] (c) In all animal sperm and in all plant seeds there is an intrinsic kind of immensity and eternity - immensity because it can be replicated to infinity, and eternity because its replication has continued without interruption from the creation of the world until now and will continue perpetually. As an example from the animal kingdom, take fish in the ocean. If there were as many fish as there are fish sperm, within twenty to fifty years fish would fill the ocean to the point where it contained nothing else, causing the water to flood the whole planet and destroy it. To prevent this, God has provided that fish become food for other fish.

The same would happen with plant seeds. If all the seeds that one plant produces each year were planted, within twenty or thirty years they would cover the surface of not just one planet but many. In the case of some bushes, each seed will produce hundreds or even thousands of other seeds [in a year]. Calculate it for yourself, multiplying the production of one such seed twenty or thirty times over, and you will see.

The divine immensity and eternity cannot help but be reflected in some way. The two commonly experienced phenomena just discussed make these divine qualities visible.

[4] (d) To an enlightened reason the infinity of God can become apparent from the fact that every academic discipline can grow to an infinite extent. So, therefore, can our intelligence and wisdom. Both intelligence and wisdom are capable of growing from a seed into a tree, and from a tree into forests and gardens of trees - intelligence and wisdom have no end. Our memory is their soil. They germinate in our intellect; they bear fruit in our will. In fact, these two faculties, our intellect and our will, are capable of being cultivated and improved to the end of our lives in this world, and afterward to eternity.

[5] (e) You can also see the infinity of God the Creator in the infinite number of stars, which are all suns, and all have solar systems. Elsewhere, in a short work that I wrote as an eyewitness, I have shown that out in space there are planets that have people, animals, birds, and plants.

[6] (f) The angelic heaven and also hell have made the infinity of God even more obvious to me. God has arranged and ordered both places into countless communities and groups according to every type of love for good or love for evil, allotting every individual a location according to what she or he loves. All members of the human race have gathered there since the creation of the world; they will continue to gather there throughout the ages of ages. Although each person has his or her own place and situation, still all who are there have such a partnership with each other that the entire angelic heaven is like one divine human being, and the entirety of hell is like one monstrous devil. From the entirety of heaven and the entirety of hell and from the infinite number of astounding things in them, both the immensity and the omnipotence of God stand in plain view.

[7] (g) If we raise the level of our mental reasoning a little, surely we can all understand that the life to eternity we will all have after death is impossible unless God is eternal.

[8] (h) There are further aspects of infinity that become visible to us, some in physical light and others in spiritual light. As examples that become visible in physical light, there are various geometrical series that go on to infinity. On each of the three vertical levels as well, there is a progression to infinity. The first level, called the earthly level, cannot be refined and raised to the perfection of the second level, called the spiritual level. Neither can this level be refined and raised to the perfection of the third level, called the heavenly level. It is like the purpose, the means, and the result. No matter how developed the result becomes, it cannot take the place of the means to itself; nor can these means take the place of the purpose behind them.

Take the three levels of atmospheres as another illustration. The aura is supreme, the ether is below it, and the air is under the ether. No type of air can ever have such high quality that it becomes a type of ether, nor can any type of ether ever have such high quality that it becomes a type of aura. Yet the qualities of each of these atmospheres can be developed and improved to infinity.

As for examples that become visible in spiritual light, the earthly type of love an animal has cannot have such a high quality that it becomes the spiritual love that creation has endowed us with. Likewise an animals earthly intelligence cannot have such a high quality that it becomes human, spiritual intelligence. Because these last points are not yet known, they will be explained elsewhere [; 335].

From all the above examples you can see that features that are universal to our world are everlasting tokens of God the Creators infinity. As for the way specific things imitate those universal features, however, and reflect the infinity of God, this is an abyss; it is an ocean the human mind can navigate, as long as it remains watchful for storms arising from the earthly self that would sink the ship - masts, sails, and all - starting with the helm where the earthly self stands confident.

"Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created: and thou renewest the face of the ground." Psalm 104:30

Additional readings: Isaiah 45:11-25, John 1:1-14, Psalm 104

Some today think of the universe as self-created, that its life is from itself, and that man is a product of the forces of nature. This is, in brief, the materialist's explanation of nature and of human life.

If this were true, the knowledge of nature and of its laws should solve all our problems. But there are qualities in man that are not found in nature. There is no morality in nature, nor is altruism to be found there. Nature's first law is the law of self-preservation, but among men—even the lowest of them—there is the feeling that they should not always seek to please themselves, that it is truly manly to try to save another at the risk of one's own life, that it is right to protect the weak, to help the neighbor.

Nature knows of no power above itself nor of any life after death. Likewise the materialists are unable to conceive of anything supernatural; they can acknowledge no supreme Being or Creator; they do not believe that they live after death. It should be obvious that nature cannot reveal anything that lies beyond its realm.

Yet in order that any finite thing may live there must be an infinite and uncreated source of life. If there were nothing to begin with, then plainly nothing could result. The forms of life which we see about us, and which we ourselves are, must derive their existence from One who is life itself. This is the meaning of the name Jehovah—the "I Am"—He who is in and of Himself. Such is the true conception which lies at the foundation of all intelligent thinking concerning Him. "Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Greater of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary?" (Isaiah 40:28). Creation is but the effect of the outpouring of life from Him. This life is called in the Scriptures His breath or spirit. Accordingly we have such statements as that of our text: "Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created."

But He who sends forth His life-giving spirit is hidden from our natural sight. Yes, even spirit itself is outwardly invisible. And so those who do not lift up their thoughts above nature are tempted to deny His existence. There are higher things than those that can be seen. The spirit of God and all else that is spiritual lie within and above the plane of the senses. Life flows from within outwards. What we see is its external effects; we do not see life itself. Our own spiritual natures are concealed from outward view. We cannot see the souls of those about us. The soul is within the body but is distinct from it. When it is withdrawn, the body dies. In like manner all life is internal and spiritual. He from whom it proceeds is the inmost fountain of all being. "Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created."

Again it has often been imagined by people who do believe in a personal God that He created the world and then let it go on by itself according to a system of laws provided for its government. This belief is in part due to the fact that God keeps Himself out of sight and in part to the fact that men think that His way of doing things would be like theirs. A man builds a house, and he may go away and never see it again. But we must remember that man does not create; he only makes use of materials at hand, reforming them to serve his immediate purpose. The Lord, because He creates, is never absent from any part of His creation. By His presence He keeps the universe alive, just as He originally called it into being. Were He to separate Himself from the things which He has made, they would all perish. This is what our text declares in saying, "Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created." We are not told that the Lord did send out His spirit at some time many years ago, but that He is sending it out now. The language is not that things were created once upon a time, but that they are created. "Existence is perpetual creation." The present tense transforms the statement into a universal law.

It is so too with the second phrase of the text, "Thou renewest the face of the ground." Allusion is obviously made, in the sense of the letter, to the changes continually going on in nature—the succession of one generation by another and the endless alternation of the seasons. Mother earth is just as fresh and young and productive today as she was in most ancient times. She is in the constant reception of new life. Not a moment passes without the face of the ground being renewed.

There is a lesson for us in this. It should teach us of the nearness of our Heavenly Father and of His constant provision for us. He is present in the heat and light of the sun, in the fields, forests, and mountains, in the rivers, lakes, and seas, in the winds and skies. All tell of His majesty and power, and especially of His constant presence. If we can see this, nature becomes more beautiful and wonderful to us. We see in nature His spirit renewing the face of the ground.

How strange it is that study of nature should lead men to disbelief in God. If the universe did not have order, if its parts were disconnected, without relation or use to one another and to the service and enjoyment of men, we might perhaps believe that it was not designed or created by an intelligent Being. But as the case stands, love and wisdom could not have written themselves more plainly in living characters before our eyes. And what are love and wisdom but the essence of a perfect personality? They cannot possibly exist as mere abstractions: they must be embodied in a person. Love is the inmost vital principle, and wisdom is the means whereby love accomplishes its purposes.

The Lord alone has life in Himself. He needs must be the Source of all creation. "All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made" (John 1:3). And of the creation of the earth it is written, "He created it not in vain; he formed it to be inhabited” (Isaiah 45:18). The purpose of the creation of the world was that there might be people upon it, that we might here be formed into God's own image and likeness and find happiness in heaven to eternity. For this reason, however long our life here may be, we are never completely satisfied with it. There has always been among all people a conviction that there is an afterlife. This conviction is not an idle dream but a perception that the goal of life cannot be reached here—that there is more which the Lord has prepared for us.

And just as the Lord is ever present in His creation, sustaining and controlling it from moment to moment, so He is ever present with us, giving us life, and guiding us if only we will be guided—for it is contrary to the Divine love to compel men—to our heavenly home. The Divine Providence is concerned with our spiritual and eternal life, and with bodily and temporal things only as they affect this. "What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" (Matthew 16:26).

This view of the relationship between God and His creation gives us a concept of God that is both rational and also satisfactory to our affectional nature. The Bible starts with the words "In the beginning God. created the heaven and the earth" (Genesis 1:1) to teach us that there is a Divine Being with a purpose supremely beneficent, and that there is an Intelligence altogether equal to the attainment of that purpose, and the rest of the Scriptures tell us of the Lord's operation in history to the accomplishment of His purposes. Knowledge of Him and of His purposes enables us to realize that there are better times ahead for us and happier times for the human race upon the earth, to which all lovers of mankind may look forward.

Moreover the Lord Himself came into the world as the Redeemer and Savior of men. In our own struggles we are not alone. The God of Battles is fighting for us. We are not cogs in a universal mechanism. The Lord is present everywhere in the universe. He comes to us outwardly in all the beneficent influences of nature, in the warmth and light of the sun and in all its other bounties. He is present in our souls, seeking to gladden us with the warmth of His love and to enlighten our minds with His wisdom, redeeming us from our iniquities and creating us anew into His own image and likeness.