Article September 21, 1912 Issue

"LET GOD BE TRUE."

SAMUEL GREENWOOD.

It is the unexplained inconsistency of a professedly Christian people that they should continue to reckon as legitimate and true what God condemns, or what is logically out of keeping with His infinite nature. Laws which do not acknowledge the supremacy and sovereignty of divine Spirit; an asserted intelligence which can think good or evil at its will; a blind material force which dooms mankind, without respect to age or circumstance, to conditions that outrage even the human sense of justice and mercy,—these are believed by some to be as true as Deity Himself. What, then, shall we do with the Scriptural teaching from Genesis to Revelation, that God is the only power, intelligence, or creator? Or what shall we say of the verdict of history, that fidelity to the right, that is to divine Principle, has brought to nations and individuals the only enduring success and prosperity?

The appeal of Joshua to the Israelites in applicable today: "If it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve." An evil thing to serve the Lord! Although we are no longer tempted to bow down to material idols, do we not with unblushing abandon acknowledge "other gods" than the one "I am"? Are not Christians virtually taught that it is unwise, an evil thing to trust in God with the whole heart? Are not the criticisms of Christian Science on this point equivalent to the declaration that it is wiser to serve God only in part, and that we should serve man-made laws the other part? Is it not a fact that while religions generally admit the claims of God as infinite and supreme, the general practice of religionists is not based upon that concept of Deity? Nevertheless, are we not led to believe in the Scriptures that it is practise alone which God cares for, and not human theories? Surely, if it is evil or unprofitable or unwise to take the teaching of God's allness into our lives, it must be equally so to acknowledge it in doctrine.

Mankind are not urged to serve God alone as though He were in competition with some other power or being, but because God alone is worthy of service. Whatever is not of God is not good and must be intrinsically bad; hence it is not entitled to one's respect or belief. The "other gods" against which mankind have been warned are the beliefs in other powers, other minds, other laws than God, and their acceptance has brought only evil into human experience. The freedom to choose between good and evil does not imply that both are true, for in that case there were no alternative but to accept both. To understand that God, infinite good, is true, and is all that is true, and to let evil be untrue, is as scientific as to assume that the correct relation of numbers is all that is true in mathematics. For example, the great majority of mankind let it be true that two and two are four, and untrue that they are anything else. Good has been proved over and over again to be the real and evil the unreal (practically every individual has proved this in some degree); hence the folly of choosing to serve evil is the folly of believing what has been proved to be a lie.

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