that case infinity amounts to perfection.45 But then even this attribute of divine infinity has to be
properly understood. This divine infinity is not an infinity of magnitude—in the sense in which
people sometimes speak of the infinite or boundless dimensions of the spatial universe—for God
is incorporeal and has no extension. Neither is it an infinity of number—as in mathematics we
speak of something as being infinitesimally small or infinitely large—for this would conflict with
God’s oneness and simplicity. But it is an “infinity of essence.” God is infinite in his characteristic
essence, absolutely perfect, infinite in an intensive, qualitative, and positive sense. So understood,
however, God’s infinity is synonymous with perfection and does not have to be treated separately.
Eternity
Infinity in the sense of not being determined by time is the eternity of God. Scripture nowhere
speaks of a beginning of or an end to God’s existence. Though he is often most vividly pictured as
entering into time, he still transcends it. He is the first and the last (Isa. 41:4; Rev. 1:8), who existed
before the world was (Gen. 1:1; John 1:1; 17:5, 24) and who continues despite all change (Ps. 102:27–
28). He is God from eternity to eternity (Ps. 90:2; 93:2). The number of his years is unsearchable
(Job 36:26). A thousand years in his sight are as brief as yesterday is to our mind (Ps. 90:4; 2 Pet.
3:8). He is the everlasting God (Isa. 40:28; Rom. 16:26), who inhabits eternity (Isa. 57:15), lives
forever and ever (Deut. 32:40; Rev. 10:6; 15:7), swears by his life (Num. 14:21, 28), is called “the
living and enduring God” (1 Pet. 1:23), the immortal God (Rom. 1:23; 1 Tim. 6:16), who is and who
was and who is to come (Exod. 3:14; Rev. 1:4, 8). Here too, to be sure, Scripture speaks of God in
human fashion, and of eternity in the forms of time. At the same time it clearly indicates that God
transcends time and cannot be measured or defined by the standards of time. The Deism of past
and present, however, defines eternity as time infinitely extended in both directions. According
to it, the difference between time and eternity is merely quantitative, not qualitative; gradual, not
essential. The difference is not that eternity excludes the succession of moments but that it is
without beginning and end. The past, present, and future exist not only for humans but also for
and in God. So taught the Socinians46 and many people after them.47 Pantheism, on the other
hand, similarly confused eternity and time. According to it, God and the world are related as
“nature begetting” (natura naturans) and “nature begotten” (natura naturata).48 Eternity, says
pantheism, is not essentially distinct from time but rather the “substance,” the immanent cause of
time, while time is the “mode,” the “accident” of eternity, as waves are the incidental forms in
which the ocean appears to us. God himself is pulled down into the stream of time and only comes
to full relation in time.49 Strauss voiced this view clearly: “Eternity and time relate to each other
as substance and its accidents,”50 while Schleiermacher cautiously defined God’s eternity as
“God’s absolutely timeless causality, which conditions all that is temporal and even time itself.”
Also, with respect to this perfection of God, Christian theology must avoid the errors of both
Deism and pantheism. It is of course true that one distinction between eternity and time is that
the latter has a beginning and an end (at least potentially) and the former does not. But this does
