Article August 21, 1902 Issue

The Right Sense of God

Bicknell Young

State Register

God is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever, no matter how uncertain, finite, or inadequate may be the terms used to explain Him, or how sacrilegious or idolatrous the mortal mind pictures may be that seek to satisfy human desire and finite senses by making a God in the image of man. "God is a spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." If God is not spirit, what is He? Matter? If God is not mind or intelligence, what is He? Non-intelligence? If God is not principle and law, what is He? Chance and lawlessness? If God is not life, what is He? All Christians agree upon the fact that God is infinite, that He is good, and being infinite, He is necessarily infinite Good. For the same reason, He is infinite Life. Christian Scientists accept the statement of St. John that "God is love," and therefore infinite Love. They cannot conceive of the omnipresence or omniscience of a God in human form or like "a divine man." Deity is self-existent and eternal entity. To make a mental image of God under the excuse that we must have "a thinkable God is as idolatrous as it would be to make an image of wood or stone. Our text-book says:—

"The everlasting I am is not bounded nor compressed within the narrow limits of physical humanity, nor can He be understood aright through mortal concepts. The precise form of God must be of small importance, when compared with the sublime question, What is infinite Mind, or divine Love?

"No form or physical combination is adequate to represent infinite Love. A finite and material sense of God leads to formalism and narrowness, and freezes the heart of Christianity" (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker G. Eddy, p. 256).

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