Article May 2, 1931 ISSUE

Dominion

HERBERT BUCHER

In the Holy Bible are to be found many statements regarding dominion, the first occurring in the first chapter of Genesis, where we read, "Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy, after giving us a view of the loveliness of all things created by God, Love, says (p. 516), "Man, made in His likeness, possesses and reflects God's dominion over all the earth." Throughout all time, as the result of false education, mortals have believed themselves largely subservient to and at the mercy of material conditions and environment. Such dominion as they seem to have possessed has usually been born of will-power, which is not real dominion, but is the domination of the human will over its own material beliefs—a condition of affairs utterly unlike the loving dominion that man in God's likeness reflects and enjoys now, and shall eternally.

Domination is of human origin. Dominion is God-directed and inspired, and therefore is good in its intent and result. The quality of dominion may be said to be operative in two ways: first, the dominion that man has over evil, including sin and disease; secondly, the dominion that implies the embracing in consciousness of right ideas. In the first instance we may clearly see that the very unknowing of discord, of whatever nature or name, and the recognizing of the presence of perfect harmony constitute a power which is God-inspired, and against which so-called evil wars in vain. In the second instance the truth is discerned; then there follows the ejection of error from human consciousness; and this is spiritual dominion.

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