Article July 7, 1917 Issue

Unity of Divine Law

SAMUEL GREENWOOD

God's law in its applicability to mankind was interpreted by Moses in what is known as the Ten Commandments, which were designed to cover the various phases of human experience and to help mortals overcome their tendencies to sin. Jesus embodied "the law and the prophets," all the religious teaching that preceded him, in two commandments: the first enjoining supreme love for God, and the second, its corollary, love for the neighbor. In Christian Science God's law is understood to mean His allness. Writing on this subject of page 30 of "No and Yes" Mrs. Eddy says, "God's law is in three words, 'I am All;' and this perfect law is ever present to rebuke any claim of another law." God is a "jealous God" in that His infinitude permits nothing to exist apart from or unlike Himself, so that the human acknowledgment of aught besides Him is a direct infringement of divine law.

Because the law of righteousness as presented in the Hebrew Decalogue was seemingly divided into separate parts, mortals have conceived the notion that they can choose which of these parts they shall observe, which means that they have the moral liberty partly to obey good and partly to obey evil. Many Christians have gone even farther in believing that they can obey the first command of Jesus and love God with the whole heart, while they disobey the second, which requires them to love their neighbor. This view was uncompromisingly rebuked in the statement found in the epistle of James, that an offense against the law in one point makes one guilty of all. An examination of the Ten Commandments from the spiritual viewpoint of Christian Science shows that all are included in the first, the succeeding nine serving to exemplify its varied application to human life and conduct.

The evil in human thought is therefore the belief that men have power to transgress the law of God, but this belief is not an intelligence or a person. In supposition it is a counterfeit of good, asserting itself in qualities, activities, and presence opposite to the divine. It is consequently indivisible in its spirit and effect, as indicated in the apostle's statement just quoted. Honesty, mercy, justice, love, and the like are not separate virtues acting independently of each other, but the varied expressions of the operation of one divine Principle; while their human opposites are but different phases of the one belief in evil. If a mortal identifies himself with any one of the category of errors, accepting it as a rule of thought and conduct, he virtually admits them all, and joins himself to the whole intent and spirit of evil. One could not, for instance, give himself over to dishonesty and separate himself from contact with its evil source, or escape the defilement of association with other forms of iniquity.

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