Article September 4, 1920 Issue

Praying to Principle

LESTER D. EHMKE

Perhaps the greatest inspiration to one taking up the study of Christian Science is the revelation that God is infinite divine Principle. In fact, one cannot understand or demonstrate the Science of Christianity without acknowledging God as such. Whenever a man has grasped this interpretation of the infinite Being and sincerely applied himself to it, the unfailing law of God has made itself manifest, whether in Moses' time, Jesus' time, or Paul's. It was only when men began to doubt God's infinitude that agnosticism or nescience set in.

Just about this time, however, we find Paul earnestly rebuking the Athenians for dedicating an altar "to the unknown God." The unbelievers argued that even if God were infinite, still man was finite; therefore it was impossible for man to know God or God to know man, on account of their opposite natures. Yet to-day Christian Science is repeating the ancient demonstrations of the prophets and apostles through the understanding of God as infinite Principle. Nevertheless, as in Paul's time so to-day the agnostic supports his passive position with the self-satisfied declaration that if there is an infinite, all-knowing God, then prayer is needless and useless; and "prayer," he is told, "is the Christian's vital breath" (Hymnal, p. 91). Just here, however, where the agnostic in apparent triumph draws his conclusion, Mrs. Eddy, on page 2 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" dispels the sophistry: "Prayer cannot change the Science of being, but it tends to bring us into harmony with it." On the following page she aptly adds: "Who would stand before a blackboard, and pray the principle of mathematics to solve the problem? The rule is already established, and it is our task to work out the solution. Shall we ask the divine Principle of all goodness to do His own work? His work is done, and we have only to avail ourselves of God's rule in order to receive His blessing, which enables us to work out our own salvation." To do this one must constantly live in harmony with Principle.

Believing in a finite man of the flesh instead of man made in God's infinite likeness, the agnostic through loose thinking and faulty reasoning has been tricked by the carnal mind to have no trust in a divine Being, and as a result he has been missing the blessings which the all-loving Father has been constantly bestowing upon understanding hearts; for demonstration and revelation are coincident. When Christ Jesus said, "The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do," he certainly meant that nothing real is ever done except that which is in accordance with divine Principle; and that saying is assurance enough that man is spiritual and reflects the infinite qualities of his Maker.

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