Infinity within Finite Beings

On one side, you can say that our lifetime is consisted of discrete moments. You can distinctly mark events; for instance, at the first second you step out from your apartment door and at the second second you close the door behind you. So if you're looking at the second hand of an old-fashioned clock, you see that hand ticks forward, it jumps to the next second.

Obviously, you can count seconds. They are finite discrete numbers. However, this notion becomes more complex when we talk about existence. The jump from one second to another implies that there is a vacuum in between but that doesn't make sense, my existence (looking at one second to another, not my lifetime) doesn't have a jump because I'm continuously existing like you're drawing a line without lifting up your pencil at all.

If you break it down, you get:

In one second, there are 10 centiseconds, that is 100 deciseconds, that is 1000 milliseconds, that is 1,000,000 microseconds, that is 1,000,000,000 nanoseconds, and so on ... (in other words, this is what you actually call infinity). Within these finite numbers, infinity abides. 

Guess what, a famous French philosopher, Rene Descartes, used this as one of his arguments to prove that there is an infinite being who was sustaining his finite being to exist continuously. Thus, according to Descartes, there must be God. (Note: for more elaborate argumentation, you can google Descartes' Meditation III.)

On that note, these numbers can also illustrate the plausibility for a finite being to contain infinity within. That is, a finite man can contain the infinite God within him.

(Modified from a tract, called "The Mystery of Human Life")



Comments

  1. there's something about man, you're right, ... we are not happy with finite things and temporary stuff: we want something infinite and divine, something that will really fill us! I love that song that says, "though very great is all the world / and very small is your heart / yet the great world with all its wealth / never can fill your small heart!" Only God can fill our heart - the Infinite One can fill our Finite Heart!

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  2. Yes. This also reminds me of a verse in the Bible. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says "He hath set eternity in their (man's) heart,..." (ASV)

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