R.C. Sproul

Look at me.

Look in my eyes.

You're not looking into the eyes of God because I'm not God either.

So I can go and I can begin to cross off the list, all possible contenders for who God is.

But Plotinus is saying, that's all you can ever do.

Now, on the one hand,

We don't share this massive skepticism with Plotinus to say that all you can ever do is speak about what God isn't.

Yet at the same time, we recognize that there are times in which using the way of negation is valuable.

because the way of negation points us to the difference between ourselves and God, and by pointing that difference, it points to the grandeur of God, His majesty, the way in which He transcends what we are.

Now one of the most common terms that we use of God by way of negation is that term, infinite, because what the term infinite means is what?

not finite.

So all we're doing is saying, however we see anything that has bounds and limits to it, don't attribute that to God because God goes beyond any limitation of space or time or whatever perfection where all of us are limited spatially, temporally, and with respect to our being as far as perfection is concerned.

So when we speak of God's being infinite, we're using the method of describing Him that we call the way of negation.

Other examples would be we say He is immutable.

What does that mean?

That He is without mutation.

All creatures that we know of are open to change.

Every one of us has changed since we walked in this room tonight if for no other way in which we're a few moments older than we were before we came in.

And with that aging process came changes in our molecular structure and so on.

And that's true of every created entity.