Article September 26, 1903 Issue

Some Corrections

W. D. McCrackan

Brooklyn (N. Y.) Times

Spinoza used the term God throughout his philosophy as equivalent to "nature." It was his belief, so as can be judged from his writings, that God was in the material universe. Christian Science, on the contrary, teaches that God is Spirit, as Jesus said to the Samaritan woman, and that God's universe and God's man, which reflect Him, are spiritual, eternal, and indestructible. Christian Science teaches that matter is one of the many concepts of the human or carnal mind, and that these concepts must one and all first be recognized as false, and then be overcome through the knowledge, or Science, of God the One Mind, Spirit, or Soul. This knowledge is neither pagan nor idolatrous. It is in line with Jesus' promise: "And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou has sent," and it fulfils the first commandment: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me."

When the term personality is applied to God, great care must be taken not to imagine God to be a magnified man, limited and finite. Christian Science protests against the term personality as applied to God in such a sense. In her Message to the Mother Church in Boston in June, 1901, Mrs. Eddy stated,—

"Our departure from theological personality is, that God's personality must be as infinite as Mind is. We believe in God as the infinite Person; but lose all conceivable idea of Him as a finite Person with an infinite Mind. That God is either inconceivable, or is manlike, is not my sense of Him. In Divine Science He is altogether lovely, and consistently conceivable as the personality of infinite Love infinite Spirit, than whom there is none other."

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