  Infinite Derivative Gravity is able to resolve the Big Bang curvature
singularity present in general relativity by using a simplifying ansatz. We
show that it can also avoid the Hawking- Penrose singularity, by allowing
defocusing of null rays through the Raychaudhuri equation. This occurs not only
in the minimal case where we ignore the matter contribution, but also in the
case where matter plays a key role.
  We investigate the conditions for defocusing for the general case where this
ansatz applies and also for more specific metrics, including a general
Friedmann-Robertson-Walker (FRW) metric and three specific choices of the scale
factor which produce a bouncing FRW universe.
