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 compre-
hensible 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 acknowl-
edge 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 sand-
banks. 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 com-
prehend the eternity of the world. What if he had tried to see the infinity
of God?
2. God is infinite because he existed before the world, before space and 29
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 sens-
ing; 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 spin-
ning 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 sea-
sons 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 differen-
tiated from each other and also extended.
§29 god the creator & creation 39