Infinity and God

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The idea of infinity is awe-inspiring. With a mere thought it pushes us to the limits of our imagination, only to find out that neither the number nor the imagination of it, have been exhausted.

But the idea does exhaust the separation between real and unreal, rather it puts into question the very definitions of the two. And it brings forth the realisation that the human thought encompasses an unbounded space and time, of which the so-called real, physical world is a mere subset.

This finite subset of the larger set of possibilities and potentialities serves as a limiting vessel we call the physical universe, within which are also smaller physical vessels that hold in their bounds the unbounded human mind — as in, unbound infinities bounded in finite vessels.

Surely, the mere thinkability of unbounded infinites does not imply that the mind has an access or power upon physically unreal continuums, rather it implies that the mind has the power to know beyond the sensible, the physical, the empirical. Rather, the mind has a way of rejecting being cornered into physically limited realities, and has a want for jumping off the edges of the universe and apprehending what may lie in its depths and what may lie beyond it.

The mind has the ability to sense so many things within this universe that are not material but abstract, like space-time orientation, numbers and mathematics, language, psychology, feelings, instinct of right and wrong, things that are essentially unbounded. It seems like the mind possesses in its a priori framework the instinct of the extra-physical, the abstract.

Inbuilt in the mind's framework are, along with the certain belief on tangible realities surrounding us, also questions regarding the 'first principles' upon which we set our definitions regarding the being, knowledge, identity and other such vital abstracts, without answering whom the picture of life remains incomplete and insatiate. Metaphysics, philosophy, sociology, the sense of beauty, morals, beliefs — human life would be non-existent without these refined and subtle faculties; we would not be humans, just animals at the top of the food chain.

So, our abstractions make us humans. These abstracts, though existing as ideas and having no physical or concrete existence or bounds, nevertheless are undeniable truths. Rather they are the truths that complete our picture of reality, without whom we would be facing a totally unexplainable physical world.

So, just like the abstract systems of numbers go so far in helping us understand our physical world, the same numbers tending to infinity, help us understand the possibility of the beyond, of something that can be unbounded in the material sense. Hobbes has rightly surmised that infinity is composed of two parts — one that is counted, and the other that is left uncounted as the inexhaustible remainder.

Yet this inexhaustible remainder does not necessarily exhaust the mind, rather it gives the mind the surety that beyond the 'finite' features of the universe lies something incomprehensible, something obscure, but something as real as what we find in our limited, confined, finite world. For the mind, the uncountable is just as real as the countable!

And the proof is the mind itself! We know that we exist because the mind tells us so; we know what we know because the mind knows it; we endeavour in sciences because the mind put up questions to itself, that set it on the pursuit of discovery and invention. So, if all our knowing rests upon the evidence of the mind, is it not the mind that urges upon the idea that somewhere hidden to our eyes, there is a source of all infinities, and that is God!

Great minds like Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz linked infinity directly to God. Leibniz was of the idea that the created world contains only potential infinities, while actual infinity is in God. Spinoza claimed that only God is truly infinite; an infinite substance with infinite attributes, and everything finite is a mode or expression of this infinite reality. Descartes had the idea that humans have a concept of an infinite, perfect being; and because finite beings could not have invented this idea; so, its presence in our minds is evidence of God's existence.

That is how God has made this universe, infinitely large, infinitely diverse, infinitely sublime — unaccountable, unreducible, inexplicable, unfathomable. And in the middle of this huge mystery, God made tiny minds that can sense His presence from billions of lightyears away; with galaxies, their clusters and superclusters in between.

God thought, can I place man in a vast multifold cosmic web, glued by inscrutable layers of gravity and electromagnetic radiations; mass and energy; matter and antimatter; and find those who can still find me, from the lens of their minds?

Can there be a universe filled with dark matter and dark energy, and there be in it hearts that have the light to see through the infinite, undetectable sublime, and reach Me with their longings and love?

Can I put the evidence of my existence not in the sensory realm but in the realm of the mind and the heart, whom I lighten up with the ideas of infinite goodness, infinite mercy, infinite creation and unbounded love?

Can the mind and the heart evidence upon the existence of eternal time and eternal space, upon the connection of human consciousness to a larger, extra-universal consciousness - evidence upon the Ultimate Reality, which is a singular, infinite, essence that unifies all existence?

God thought man could reach Him via the heart which He will fill with an ethereal, subliminal, subjective unboundedness that will search Him out from infinite distances. As Søren Kierkegaard said, "Faith is a miracle, and yet no man is excluded from it; for that in which all human life is unified is passion, and faith is a passion."

And as said Iqbal:

Ek danish-e-noorani, ek danish-e-burhani

Hai danish-e-burhani, hairat ki farawani

Iss paikar-e-khaaki mein ek shay hai, so woh teri

Mere liye mushkil hai uss shay ki nighabani

For those whose hearts seek Him, He is the most obvious truth. The Quran connects the two infinities, it says, "the believers are only those who, when Allah is mentioned, their hearts shiver, and when His verses are recited to them, it increases them in faith; and upon their Lord they rely" Al Anfal (8:2).