Editorial August 6, 1910 Issue

THE VANISHING OF MATERIALITY

Annie M. Knott

Religion and physical science have generally been agreed that the material world and all it contains will be destroyed at some period unknown to either science or religion, but people have usually trusted that this great change might not come in their day. Although it is distinctly stated in the Bible that the material must vanish before the spiritual can be recognized, yet even professed Christians have continued to cling to the material as if it were the real and eternal. In the second epistle of Peter we find definite reference to the teachings of the "holy prophets" on this subject, also to those of Christ Jesus as given to his apostles, and Peter speaks of the "scoffers," who deny the approach of spiritual conditions, saying that "all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation;" that is, material, even as to the materialist they seem to be.

This apostle, however, maintains the necessity for the destruction of materiality in order that "new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness," may appear. This is distinctly the teaching of Christian Science, but it also teaches that the material never was real, that the divine creation must be spiritual in order to express and reflect the creator who is Spirit. Mrs. Eddy illuminates this whole question when she says (Science and Health, p. 573), "The heavens and earth to one human consciousness, that consciousness which God bestows, are spiritual, while to another, the unillumined human mind, the vision is material." As the veil of material belief becomes thinner for us, we begin to see things somewhat as God sees them, and, of course, as they really are. If we could see the universe as God sees it, namely, as His reflection, every trace of evil and materiality would disappear for us, and we should know even as we are known.

The apostle tells us that "the elements shall melt with fervent heat," and in Deuteronomy and Hebrews we read that "God is a consuming fire." As the Bible also declares that God is Love, it becomes very clear that divine Love is forever consuming all that can be destroyed, all that is unlike God: but this does not mean that the real man or the real universe ever vanishes away. Christ Jesus explained this to some cavilers by the wonderful illustration of Moses at the burning bush. This bush was not destroyed by the fire, and although the Jews contended that Abraham, Moses, and the prophets were dead, the Master insisted that God "is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto him."

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