Editorial February 2, 1907 Issue

"ALL THINGS NEW"

JOHN B. WILLIS

IN the vision of the Apocalypse St. John represents himself as having been caught up above the plane of material sense into the realm of reality, where he "heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men . . . And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new." This declaration conveys a suggestion of the tense of all creative acts, and the quality of all created things, which is of the most illuminating significance.

For the most part theological thought respecting creation has been both materialistic and self-contradictory, in that it has practically subjected the concept of God to the limitations of time and space, while asserting His infinity or non-subjection to these limitations. Its view of the relation of the divine activity to the universe involves a sense of separation between the Maker and the thing made which readily lends itself to the philosophy of a material substance. It removes the products of activity from the actor, and begets the habit of thinking of God's creations as no longer dependent upon Him for their being,—a habit which eventuates in all the ills of fundamental misconception.

In contrast with all this, Christian Science affirms that creation is a fact of the eternal now, that the universe is the continuous going forth of omnipresent Spirit, whose works are indeed "finished," in the sense of their completeness and perfection, but not in the sense that their continuance is no longer dependent upon the divine activity. This concept shapes thought in its every latitude and projection. It makes clear the fact that in the kingdom of Spirit there is nothing old. The irrepressible spontaneity of the divine Life, the nature and naturalness of revelation as the vitalizing, nourishing outflow of this Life, the relation of every human heart to Truth, and the present and eternal freshness of things,—all this begins to appear.

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