To Infinity and Beyond
At camp meeting one year the youth evangelist took two soccer balls, kept one, and gave the other to one of the staff members. He had him walk far away, over to the edge of the field where the tent was, a good three or four hundred feet in the distance. Then he asked us to imagine that the yellow ball that he held was the Sun, and the blue ball that was over past the tent was the Earth. He explained that if that was the distance between the Sun and the Earth, then Mars would be over past the bounds of camp, Jupiter past the county line, etc. Pluto was over in another state. I think Alpha Centauri, the closest star to the Sun, was farther away than the Moon.
I don't remember all the exact distances the evangelist used in his illustration, but the impression he made was very strong: we are very small people in a vast universe- our solar system itself is incomprehensibly huge, let alone the rest of Creation!
But as huge as it is from our point of view, there's something that dwarfs the Universe itself. St Bonaventure, in chapter six of The Journey of the Mind to God, writes:
"For the diffusion that occurred in time, in the creation of the world, is no more than a focal point or brief moment in comparison with the immense sweep of the eternal goodness. From this consideration of creation one is led to think of another and a greater diffusion- that in which the diffusing good commmunicates to another His whole substance and nature."
God created the world out of His goodness; but His goodness was by no means exhausted in Creation. For God is, as Bonaventure says in the same chapter, "supremely self-diffusive"- he is eternally giving Himself to Himself, Father to Son, Son to Father, Father and Son to Spirit, world without end. Each member of the Trinity is lavishing infinite love and goodness on the other two; the creation of the universe is a weak echo of the divine symphony.
We are tiny people in a huge world; the Earth itself is speck of dust in a boundless universe; we all acknowledge that. But are we prepared to accept that the universe itself is only a minuscule island in the immeasurable ocean of divine goodness? That we and everything we see and think and do and even believe are absolutely, entirely, utterly, small and insignificant? That we could rule every star in the sky, and be no more an emperor than the Prince of Lichtenstein?
Compared to the infinite universe of God, Planet Creation might as well be nothing at all, and its inhabitants less than nothing, unless they could find a spaceship to lift themselves off their native pebble and explore the vast heavens of the Divine Glory.
But God, who is rich in mercy,
for his great love wherewith he loved us,
Even when we were dead in sins,
hath quickened us together
with Christ,
(by grace ye are saved;)
And hath raised us up together
and made us sit together in heavenly places
in Christ Jesus:
That in the ages to come
he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace
in his kindness toward us
through Christ Jesus.
(Ephesians 2:4-7)
And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us,
(and we beheld his glory,
the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,)
full of grace and truth.
(John 1:10-14)
I don't remember all the exact distances the evangelist used in his illustration, but the impression he made was very strong: we are very small people in a vast universe- our solar system itself is incomprehensibly huge, let alone the rest of Creation!
But as huge as it is from our point of view, there's something that dwarfs the Universe itself. St Bonaventure, in chapter six of The Journey of the Mind to God, writes:
"For the diffusion that occurred in time, in the creation of the world, is no more than a focal point or brief moment in comparison with the immense sweep of the eternal goodness. From this consideration of creation one is led to think of another and a greater diffusion- that in which the diffusing good commmunicates to another His whole substance and nature."
God created the world out of His goodness; but His goodness was by no means exhausted in Creation. For God is, as Bonaventure says in the same chapter, "supremely self-diffusive"- he is eternally giving Himself to Himself, Father to Son, Son to Father, Father and Son to Spirit, world without end. Each member of the Trinity is lavishing infinite love and goodness on the other two; the creation of the universe is a weak echo of the divine symphony.
We are tiny people in a huge world; the Earth itself is speck of dust in a boundless universe; we all acknowledge that. But are we prepared to accept that the universe itself is only a minuscule island in the immeasurable ocean of divine goodness? That we and everything we see and think and do and even believe are absolutely, entirely, utterly, small and insignificant? That we could rule every star in the sky, and be no more an emperor than the Prince of Lichtenstein?
Compared to the infinite universe of God, Planet Creation might as well be nothing at all, and its inhabitants less than nothing, unless they could find a spaceship to lift themselves off their native pebble and explore the vast heavens of the Divine Glory.
But God, who is rich in mercy,
for his great love wherewith he loved us,
Even when we were dead in sins,
hath quickened us together
with Christ,
(by grace ye are saved;)
And hath raised us up together
and made us sit together in heavenly places
in Christ Jesus:
That in the ages to come
he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace
in his kindness toward us
through Christ Jesus.
(Ephesians 2:4-7)
And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us,
(and we beheld his glory,
the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,)
full of grace and truth.
(John 1:10-14)