Article May 19, 1917 Issue

The account of creation depicted in the second and third...

W. D. Kilpatrick

Grand Haven (Mich.) Tribune

The account of creation depicted in the second and third chapters of Genesis undoubtedly is not a history of the true creation or of the creation of God, Spirit, outlined in the first chapter. It is a history of the so-called material creation, or the appearing of the so-called race of Adam. Our critic must admit that the first chapter of Genesis and the first five verses of the second chapter contain as complete an account of creation as one could wish for. This account includes heaven and earth and man, the fowls of the air, the beasts of the field, the fish of the sea, the fruits and herbs of the field; in fact, it states that God created everything, and that He pronounced good everything He created. In this account, as understood in Christian Science, there is no element of materiality, and all things are spiritual and perfect.

Then comes the account in the second chapter of Genesis, which was the result, as we perceive from the sixth verse thereof, of a "mist" which "watered the whole face of the ground." No one at all familiar with Bible teachings can doubt that this mist spoken of is the veil or covering of materiality which has been blinding mankind throughout the centuries. From that point on the Bible is devoted to the history of mankind, to their struggles because of their condition resulting from the mist, and to an explanation of the truth, through the application of which mankind may eventually put off the fetters of materiality and rise to that state vouchsafed in the first chapter of Genesis, where God gave man dominion over all.

The statement of the critic that "any one who confesses that God is Love cannot help admitting the reality of sin and its origin," is so anomalous in its nature as scarcely to require attention or explanation. To assume that a God of love would afflict His children with sin without giving them the understanding and power wherewith to overcome sin, misses the very essence of the teachings of the Bible and the supreme import of an omnipotent Godhead. The Bible says very clearly that God is "of purer eyes than to behold evil," and cannot "look on iniquity," and Jesus taught, and proved by casting it out, that sin was not of God. He could not have done this if sin had been God created. One of the greatest obstacles mankind have had to meet in combating sin is the false teaching that sin is real, a part of God's creation, and the same with respect to sickness. Jesus proved that sickness was not sent of God, and he also proved that it was sinful to believe that mankind are purified through sickness. The teachings of dogmatic scholasticism along this line have done more to hinder the salvation of humanity than any other one thing.

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