God is the tangential point between zero and infinity.

The saying “God is the tangential point between zero and infinity” was written by Alfred Jarry, a French poet, playwright, and philosopher best known for his eccentric brilliance and for giving birth to the concept of pataphysics—the “science of imaginary solutions.” To many, Jarry was a mad genius; yet in this single sentence, he speaks like a mystic mathematician. His words reveal not confusion, but cosmic insight — the recognition that God is the meeting point between the nothingness of creation and the boundless totality of existence, the link between the finite and the infinite, between being and non-being.

In mathematics, a tangent is a single, fleeting point of contact — where a curve meets a line, touching it but not merging with it. Jarry borrowed this idea and transformed it into a symbol of divine mystery. For him, “zero” represents the void, the unmanifest — the emptiness before creation, the silence before the Word. “Infinity,” by contrast, is the endless, the absolute, the eternal fullness of all that can exist. Between them, there is but a single, sacred point of contact — the tangential point, the moment where the void and the infinite kiss. That point, Jarry says, is God. In that instant, all opposites — beginning and end, light and darkness, life and death — unite in one eternal breath.

This conception of the divine echoes ancient wisdom. In the East, the Tao is called “the great Nothing that gives birth to everything.” In Genesis, God speaks into the void and light appears. The philosophers of the West, too, sensed this paradox. Parmenides called the ultimate reality “the One”; Plotinus called it “the Source beyond being.” Even Isaac Newton, immersed in science rather than scripture, believed that the infinite universe was held together by the unseen hand of a divine geometer. Thus, Jarry’s phrase, though clothed in the language of mathematics, carries the same ancient truth: that the Divine is the unity between nothing and everything, the point where creation itself begins and ends.

To see this truth in life, one need only look at those moments when the human soul touches eternity — moments of awe, love, or revelation. Consider Blaise Pascal, the scientist who mapped the heavens with numbers yet wept before the mystery of the Infinite. One night in 1654, he had a vision so powerful that he stitched his experience into his coat lining, never to forget it. He wrote simply, “Fire. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob — not of the philosophers and the scholars.” In that moment, he too touched the tangential point — where reason ends and wonder begins, where the finite self meets the infinite Presence.

In this way, Jarry’s quote is more than intellectual musing; it is an invitation to contemplation. It urges us to recognize that every human life stands between zero and infinity — between birth and death, between ignorance and enlightenment. Each of us lives upon that slender tangent, balancing between the dust from which we come and the eternity toward which we are called. And at the very center of that fragile line dwells God, holding both ends together with invisible grace.

Yet there is another layer of wisdom hidden within Jarry’s words: humility. By calling God the point between nothing and everything, he reminds us that our intellect can never fully grasp the Infinite. We may approach the divine, even touch it, but we cannot contain it. The tangent touches the curve for an instant, then moves on. Likewise, every revelation we experience — every flash of love, truth, or beauty — is but a glimpse of the eternal. Our task is not to capture it, but to be transformed by it.

The lesson is both cosmic and personal: we are creatures poised between the void and the infinite, and it is through that tension that we grow. To despair is to fall into zero; to pride is to presume infinity. To live rightly is to dwell at the tangent — to remember our smallness while reaching for the stars.

Practical actions: Seek silence each day — for in silence, you draw near to zero, and in silence, the Infinite may speak. Reflect on your place in the vastness of creation; let both your fragility and your divine potential humble and inspire you. When you face despair, remember that you stand on the line between nothingness and eternity — and that God Himself is the point where they meet, holding you steady in the mystery of all things.