Article February 28, 1948 Issue

WORSHIPING OTHER GODS

WELLMAN E. GERKE

The First Commandment states (Ex. 20:3), "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." Of this brief rule Mary Baker Eddy declares in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 340): "The First Commandment is my favorite text. It demonstrates Christian Science. it inculcates the triunity of God, Spirit, Mind; it signifies that man shall have no other spirit or mind but God, eternal good, and that all men shall have one Mind. The divine Principle of the First Commandment bases the Science of being, by which man demonstrates health, holiness, and life eternal."

Human thought, according to the degree of its understanding of being, interprets "other gods" in various ways. To some, the phrase "other gods" refers only to inanimate objects and elements which unenlightened thought has worshiped in the past and to some extent deifies even today. To others, the reference may mean any idolatrous concept of person, good or bad, loved or hated. To still others, more enlightened, subtle phases of mortal mind are covered by the term "other gods." These phases are the shadowy pilgrimages of human thought into the realms of dissatisfaction, sadness, grief, inability, failure, lack, greed, pride, competition, aggression, envy, covetousness, hate, and so on, all supposititious opposites of satisfaction, happiness, joy, ability, success, abundance, generosity, humility, co-operation, gentleness, good will, completeness, and love, qualities derived from God, good.

Do we not all at times accept negative mental suggestions as having some degree of validity? At one time the writer felt dissatisfied, and justified this dissatisfaction by attributing it to the lack of co-operation in others. While he understood in a measure from his study of Christian Science that neither a lack of expected co-operation nor a seeming absence of hoped-for opportunities could justify dissatisfaction and its kindred thoughts or transform them into positive virtues, he did not grasp these facts sufficiently to expel the intruding error.

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