Editorial November 22, 1930 Issue

How to Find God

Clifford P. Smith

A CONGREGATIONAL minister in New York City is collecting material for and has arranged for publishing a book which will contain fifty answers to the question "How to Find God." They may be written from any point of view, but must be original and must contain not more than three hundred words. A Committee of four representative men will select the fifty statements they regard as most helpful to modern youth. Such a book is a hopeful sign. The Christian Way should be continually restated in terms which will appeal to modern habits of thought. Christianity has fundamental ideas which are immutable. So has Christian Science, as distinguished from other interpretations of the Christian gospel. Yet, new phrasings are possible; so are fresh applications, comparisons, and illustrations.

A good many people have found God—or have felt an immediate relief from doubt or indifference—as the result of a single compelling experience. Formerly, some sudden and emotional occurrence was regarded as necessary to conviction and to conversion from an irreligious life. Nowadays, most people expect or hope to find convincing proof of God in common experiences or in present salvation from pressing evils, as in Christian Science healing. Either deliberately or spontaneously, they prefer to depend on an orderly method, such as research, which is always available and is available to all, rather than to count on an extra-normal occurrence which might be awaited or sought in vain.

Methodical research consists largely in forming and testing hypotheses. Of course, a hypothesis already formulated can be tested in appropriate ways. Thus, Paul expressed one when he said to the men of Athens, "For in him [God] we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring" (Acts 17:28). Mrs. Eddy has formulated this proposition more definitely, in these words: "As a drop of water is one with the ocean, a ray of light one with sun, even so God and man, Father and son, are one in being" (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 361). Either of these quoted statements includes a hypothesis which can be tested and proved in appropriate ways.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Editorial

Expectancy of Good