Editorial December 23, 1905 Issue

The Gain of a Spiritual View

John B. Willis

A Materialistic interpretation of history always tends to lessen the inspiring and uplifting influence of its great events. The matter-medium in and through which, as it is claimed by many, all truth must be expressed, can but localize in human thought even the greatest manifestations of intelligence and of Life, thus robbing them of their larger significance and value.

This is well illustrated in the practical effects upon mortal thought of much theological teaching respecting creation. Christian dogma has declared in effect that creation is simply the stupendous initial fact of all things. By the fiat of divine will, world substance, the apparently infinite extension of matter, came into existence. This has not been declared to be a manifestation of Spirit, but a product of nothingness, and its relations to the creator are summed up in the facts that He spake it into being, set it going upon an appointed way, and, when occasion demands, may assert final and supreme authority over it. This view of creation places it at an infinite distance, separates it wholly from the present activities of Deity, and thus classifies the universe as a gigantic material mechanism whose law and order it were vain indeed for man to oppose.

In contrast with this view Christian Science declares that creation is the perpetual going forth of omnipresent Life, Truth, and Love,—the supreme incident of an eternal now. In this Christianly scientific view, all substance is the manifestation of Spirit, and hence spiritual and good, for it inheres in the ceaseless activities of divine Mind.

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