Article November 20, 1926 Issue

In reply to "Vigilant," writing in your recent issue, let...

Charles W. J. Tennant,—Renfrewshire, Scotland

Greenock Telegraph

In reply to "Vigilant," writing in your recent issue, let me remind him that Christ Jesus said that certain signs should follow them that believed in him. These signs included healing the sick and reforming the sinner. Christian Scientists not only believe in God, but they prove their understanding by the "signs following." It is difficult to understand why our critic asserts that Mrs. Eddy does not use the word "Father," when referring to God, in view of the fact that she does so more than eighty times in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," alone. The Bible declares that God is Life, Truth, and Love, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. God is, therefore, not an abstract idea, as our critic avers. Divine Principle is not an abstract principle, as he asserts; for divine Principle is God; and He is infinite Being, Spirit, Soul, Mind.

The first chapter of Genesis is a spiritual account of creation, and has no connection with the material account given in the second chapter, beginning at the sixth verse. In the first chapter we are told that God said, "Let there be light: and there was light." This light was not physical; it was spiritual understanding. Christ Jesus said, "I am the light of the world." This is the light referred to in contrast to the darkness of material ignorance. The first two chapters of Genesis are contradictory from every point of view. Man in the first chapter is made in the image and likeness of God. This is the son of God, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. God's image and likeness has never fallen. In the second chapter, God is held responsible for the making of evil. We are told that He planted a garden, and in it He made to grow the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, although God is "of purer eyes than to behold evil," as Habakkuk says. Adam never was God's image and likeness, therefore he never had a perfect state from which to fall. Isaiah says, "Cease ye from man [Adam], whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of?"

There is nothing illogical in the statement that since God is infinite and Spirit, man must be spiritual. Evidently our critic does not realize the meaning of the word "infinite." If God were, as he supposes, "a Spirit Being, and created many spirit beings," He would not be infinite. God is Spirit and infinite; the universe, including man, is His expression or reflection. Therefore the universe, including man, is spiritual.