Truly sublime in its significance and simplicity is the designation, "I AM THAT I AM," which Moses was instructed to state to the children of Israel as the name of the one infinite God. Every phase of human limitation or bondage is traceable to the notion that the I, or I Am, of existence is finite. This limited estimate of being, with its attendant slavery, is swept away by the understanding and proof, such as Moses revealed, that the I Am is infinite Spirit. Certainly all true selfhood is included in infinity, and being included therein it must reflect infinity in order to be like God. Conventional religion and philosophy usually accept the Mosaic teaching that infinite Spirit is I Am, but inconsistently they hold that man, the image of God, is a finite, materialistic I am. Obviously such inconsistent doctrine can never lead mankind out of the Egypt of materiality and the wilderness of evil.
The importance of realizing man's true status is stated as follows on page 223 of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy: "Sooner or later we shall learn that the fetters of man's finite capacity are forged by the illusion that he lives in body instead of in Soul, in matter instead of in Spirit." It is a correlative fact that the limitations of human thought are due to its estimate of the I Am as finite instead of infinite, as matter instead of Spirit. Against such errors the Master repeatedly warned by utterances such as his parable of one house built on the rock and another on the sand. On what firmer foundation can a life be built than upon the rock of understanding that infinite Spirit is the only individuality, entity, or I. On the other hand, the belief, "I am mortal, finite, limited," is the very shifting sand of materiality.
Since the I Am of existence is infinite Spirit, there cannot be a mortal, materialistic, finite I am; for finity, materiality, is no part of infinity, of Spirit, and there cannot be anything other than the infinite All. Theorizing on this subject attempts to include the finite within the infinite, but this is impossible since the two are opposites. It is apparent, then, that customary training is erroneous in encouraging us to think of man's true selfhood as finite, and at the same time trying to conceive of God as infinite, in whom man lives, moves, and has his being. The net result of this practice is such confusion that the true idea of infinity seems lost.
