Editorial June 17, 1939 Issue

Unfallen Man

George Shaw Cook

The writer of the book of Ecclesiastes tells us that "God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions." God, we learn in Christian Science, is divine Mind, intelligence, Truth, Love. Therefore, when one thinks of man being made "upright" by this divinely creative Principle, it is obvious that man was created to manifest integrity, righteousness, purity, soundness, and health or holiness. In short, it means that man is created and exists for the purpose of expressing the perfection of absolute divine Principle; to represent exactly the nature of unchanging Love. It is self-evident, therefore, that man is unfallen.

It is equally evident that the kind of man which Mind, God, creates and maintains does not seek out "inventions" by means of which to sustain a suppositional existence, apart from his creator. Man is not separated from his Principle, God, and is not capable of expressing anything contrary to the nature of God. He is not a victim of so-called material conditions, and is not subject to any asserted law of sin and death. He is, as Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, says on page 171 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," "unfallen, upright, pure, and free, not needing to consult almanacs for the probabilities either of his life or of the weather, not needing to study brainology to learn how much of a man he is."

Man, then, is not a fallen angel, nor even a fallen mortal. The belief that man was at one time perfect — created in the image of God— but that he subsequently fell to the level of materiality and mortality is not true. Such a theory is contrary to true, spiritual Science. It is the doctrine of false or scholastic theology, and is based upon mistaken premises, It is founded upon erroneous beliefs concerning the origin and nature of man. False theology accepts as real the unreal picture of creation contained in the allegory beginning in the second chapter of Genesis, and ignores the record of spiritual creation contained in the first chapter.

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