Can you count to infinity?
No. Why not? Because you can always keep counting.
So, infinity is not a number - it is a direction.
Infinity can go forward (in positive numbers) or backward (in negative numbers) forever. It has no limit in either direction.
If you had to describe God in one word, you could say that He is infinite. He always was and always will be everything. When Moses asked Him His name - His identity - He simply responded, “I AM.” There is no beginning, end, or limit to God’s existence.
God is infinite because He cannot be measured or limited.
Any attempt to measure God will always result in you finding more of Him.
And any attempt to understand God will likewise always result in you discovering more about Him.
God exists outside of our understanding. For us, trying to understand God is like a two-dimensional character trying to understand a three or four dimensional character. It would be like trying to explain every detail of our reality to a cartoon character. Or a monkey trying to explain to a fish about life in the trees. The two-dimensional character and the fish would not be able to comprehend what they are being told because it exists beyond their realm of understanding. Nonetheless, the two and three dimensional characters do have things in common, as do the monkey and the fish, so an effort to reach some level of understanding can be made. Just as God does communicate with us, and we often have to stretch our minds in order to understand what He is saying.
We tend to try to grasp God with our minds, but the only way we can even come close to really knowing and understanding Him is with our hearts.
Our minds are pretty good at identifying the beginning and end of things, categorizing things, and generally putting boundaries around things. But our hearts are much better equipped at understanding things that cannot be categorized or quantified by the mind - things like faith, determination, or love - which have no exact beginning or end, and a depth that can only be known by experience.
If you truly want to know and understand God, you have to approach Him from your heart first, with your mind serving only as a backup.
However, we, being the curious and witty humans that we are, have tried to break down and compartmentalize God’s infinitude into smaller categories that our minds can comprehend; even though they end up still being largely beyond our ability to fully grasp. We have tried to organize and categorize God’s identity. We have been able to identify some areas of major concern to us and call out some of God’s distinct attributes that fit into those categories, but in doing so we are still putting God into the tiny box of our limited understanding. God is still so much more than the attributes we have identified for Him, but we call them out and praise Him for them all the same.
We are not infinite in the way God is, but we are part of His infinitude. So even though God is greater than we will ever understand, we can still have a personal relationship with Him, and He with us, because we are in fact part of everything that He is. We are made in His image. And we are made for His glory. Our infinite God created finite us both as a reflection of Himself, and so that He could have an intimate, eternal relationship with us.
Our challenge, in our finitude, is to realize and embrace the fact that we are part of Him - made by Him, for Him - and to live that way.
Exodus 3:14 (NLT) God replied to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. Say this to the people of Israel: I AM has sent me to you.”
Psalm 147:5 (NLT) How great is our Lord! His power is absolute! His understanding is beyond comprehension!
Colossians 1:17 (NLT) He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together.
Revelation 1:8 (NLT) “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”