The word "finite" means that something has limits or boundaries. It comes from the same root word as finish, as in the finish line in a race. When something is finite it means that if you go on far enough, you will come to an end. If there is no end, then it's not finite; it's "infinite".

Similarly, the word "eternal" means unbounded by time.

We can almost, but not quite, imagine something that is infinite and eternal. To think of something that is really really big, or that takes a really long time, isn't quite accurate, because we really need to think of something that transcends physical size and duration. But it's at least a start, in stretching our minds to consider what the nature of God could be.

Here we have a physical universe. It must have come from something. Plus, we have these glimpses that there are spiritual realities, too. Mathematics suggests that there are more "dimensions" needed to help make sense of the physical world. Some people have near death experiences. Some dying people seem to communicate with people who have already died. These things are at least suggestive that there could be an afterlife, and/or a spiritual plane of existence — and that God exists.

In New Christian theology, we believe that there is an infinite, eternal God. He is Divine Love, which is the wellspring of everything, and Divine Wisdom, which gives form to that love. He is unbounded by space or time.

That conception might make God seem distant and impersonal, but logically, that doesn't need to be the case. An infinite God is "big enough", capable enough to be both creating and sustaining the universe AND flowing into each one of us in ways attuned to our ability to receive his influx. A God who has the perspective of eternity also has the ability within that to operate in our lives, in our time, even if we can't perceive it.

These concepts are at the limits of many kinds of thought — science, philosophy, mathematics, and religion. There IS an underlying harmony of those disciplines, but it's hard to see sometimes, particularly because we can be blocked by preconceptions and because we're operating with finite minds, wrestling with things that we can only really see appearances of.

(For reference, see True Christian Religion 27-33)

27. THE INFINITY OR THE IMMENSITY AND THE ETERNITY OF GOD

There are two properties peculiar to the natural world which make everything in it finite. One is space, the other time. Because that world was created by God, and spatial distances and periods of time were created along with it and serve to define it, their two starting-points, immensity and eternity, need to be discussed. For the immensity of God relates to space, and His eternity to time, while His infinity embraces both immensity and eternity. But since infinity transcends the finite, and it is beyond the finite mind to grasp it, to permit some sort of perception of it, the following series of propositions will be discussed:

(i) God is infinite, because He is and comes into being in Himself, and everything in the universe is and comes into being from Him.

(ii) God is infinite, because He existed before the world did, and thus before space and time came into existence.

(iii) Since the making of the world God is non-spatially in space and non-temporally in time.

(iv) The infinity [of God] as predicated of space is called immensity, and as predicated of time is called eternity. Despite these predications His immensity is totally devoid of space and His eternity is totally devoid of time.

(v) There is much in the world which can enable enlightened reason to see the infinity of God the Creator.

(vi) Every created object is finite, and the infinite is contained in finite objects as in receivers, and in human beings as images of it. These propositions will be explained one by one.