Article May 24, 1924 Issue

Man's Relation to God

GENEVIEVE RICHART

Jesus said, "I and my Father are one." He thus declared a state of unity to be the essence of man's relation to God,—a relation in which man is never merged or lost in his divine Principle, but reflects God continually. To be one means to be united or undivided; and this meaning bases certain absolute conclusions as to the nature of man. Thus, man is like God, Spirit; for if God and man had contradictory qualities they would not be inseparable. This likeness excludes the possibility that man can be material, or both material and spiritual. Therefore, man is wholly spiritual.

The mortal of error's supposititious creating, who through a suppositional transition from the flesh to spirit is supposed to attain unity with God, is not man, but a human misconception of man. In reality, there is no mortal man; and the belief that there is never changes its essential character as a lie. Its falsity becomes apparent as the truth about man and man's relation to God is perceived; and seeing a lie as a lie destroys it.

A demonstrable concept of the relation of man to his divine Principle was given mankind by Jesus in the words, "Our Father which art in heaven," Mrs. Eddy's interpretation of which, "Our Father-Mother God, all-harmonious," in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 16), unfolds the highest, truest meaning. When one has gained sufficient understanding of the truth that "Love, the divine Principle, is the Father and Mother of the universe, including man" (Science and Health, p. 256), he begins to disprove and work out of the claim that man was born of a human father and mother. He knows that he has reached the beginning of the end of the problem, which began when he was started on the mysterious journey which he has believed to be the beginning of his life, but which material sense of life Mrs. Eddy has defined as the "ghastly farce of material existence" (Science and Health, p. 272). Proportionately as one claims his relationship as the child of God, perfect now as he always has been and always will be, he is freed from all false laws which claim to govern the human relationship of parent and child through the belief of heredity. He learns that he is not one with error and separated from God, but one with God and utterly separated from error. Thus thought obtains some realization of spiritual pre-existence, and a clearer sense of the eternality of Life.

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