Article May 21, 1910 Issue

THE OPTIMISM OF THE SCRIPTURES

SUE HARPER MIMS.

The Standard dictionary gives the following definition of optimism in theodicy: "The doctrine that the universe, being the work of an infinitely perfect Being, is the best possible universe." This century is distinctly marked, particularly since the advent of Christian Science, by what is called the optimistic spirit, a grander outlook, a pervading hope, love, and expectancy of good. This is permeating thought and is largely responsible for the marvelous achievements of our time. Old things are passing away, new possibilities are coming into view. We are looking from the finite into the infinite; we are expecting the unexpected,—nothing now seems too wonderful to be true.

In this age of splendid hope and achievement it may seem somewhat strange to find that of all the optimists who have ever lived and loved and hoped, the prophets and poets and apostles of the Bible have been the grandest and most persistent in glorifying God, good. From the opening of religious history, the story of the genesis of man, whom God spoke into being,—a creature bearing the divine image and likeness and pronounced good, yea, "very good,"—to the conclusion of that glorious revelation of things to be, in which "the holy city, new Jerusalem," descends from God out of heaven, there is never any cessation of the glad refrain of the Life-psalm, the ultimate supremacy of good.

This song of praise, this spiritual joy, is the result of spiritual vision piercing the clouds of material sense,—alias the mist that rises from the ground of mortal belief,—and until the Scriptures are thus "opened," lifted from the physical to the metaphysical,—they are obscured and robbed of their deeper, more potential meaning to humanity. This was recently illustrated in an absurd newspaper story which told of the discovery of a fruit on which there were the marks of a bite, and which was said to be the same kind of fruit as that of which Eve ate in the garden of Eden. A woman of intelligence, a devoted member of a Christian church, called my attention to this so-called discovery, thinking it most wonderful and interesting. She was greatly surprised when I said, "But, my friend, the Scriptures say nothing about an apple, or any other material fruit; that belongs to the vagaries of a material sense interpretation of the Scriptures. The Scriptural account is wholly and absolutely metaphysical. Eve partook of 'the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.'"

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