Article December 4, 1926 Issue

God, the Infinite Person

JOHN ELLIS SEDMAN

It is a well-known fact that many unnecessary and profitless discussions take place because people do not define the terms they are using. Often people think they disagree, where there is no real disagreement, solely because they are using the same terms in different ways without being aware of the fact. In any important discussion, it is desirable that terms should be clearly defined, and accurately used and understood. Never is this more important than when the subject of conversation is God.

Frequently the question is asked, Is God personal? Now no helpful or intelligent answer can be given to this question without carefully considering what is meant by the word "personal." Does the question mean, Is God anthropomorphic? That is, Is God like a human being, subject to anger, jealousy, changeableness; does He have a physique like a mortal; is He finite and limited? If such be the meaning of the question, then the answer is, No!

But, on the other hand, if the question means, Is God the ever present, ever conscious Supreme Being, who loves and understands all, and who may be loved and understood by all? then surely the answer is, Yes! For God is the self-existent, self-sustaining, eternal, all-wise, infinite One, who knows all that is knowable, and who produces and sustains, loves and governs, all that has actual existence. Christian Science makes plain the fact that not only is God personal in the higher meaning of the term, but that indeed God is the infinite Person. On page 116 of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writes: "As the words person and personal are commonly and ignorantly employed, they often lead, when applied to Deity, to confused and erroneous conceptions of divinity and its distinction from humanity. If the term personality, as applied to God, means infinite personality, then God is infinite Person,—in the sense of infinite personality, but not in the lower sense. An infinite Mind in a finite form is an absolute impossibility."