Article March 21, 1953 Issue

THE GREAT QUESTION

HARRY ABELES

"How are you?" is a cheerful greeting which usually calls forth an equally pleasant, quick reply. But suppose someone you meet should startle you with the question, "Where are you?" What would be your answer? Would you hesitate and think the question very foolish? The query, however, is neither new, trivial, nor unimportant. The Bible records in the third chapter of Genesis that the Lord God called to Adam, saying unto him, "Where art thou?" And a marginal heading on page 308 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy terms God's call to Adam "The great question." Adam, or error, does not know the correct answer to God's inquiry and is shut out of the garden of Eden; error must till the soil of its own falsity until its absolute nothingness appears.

The Psalmist presents the better sense of one's dwelling place, as can be easily seen by a study of the words dwell and dwelling with the aid of a Bible Concordance. How simply and directly Jesus answered the great question when he was asked by two of his disciples ((John 1:38), "Where dwellest thou?" Graciously he replied, "Come and see." The Bible account continues with the statement, "They came and saw where he dwelt, and abode with him that day." As a consequence of that visit, they too must have gained a purer vision of man's true dwelling. Unquestionably in that hour they could have given a satisfactory answer to that great question asked of Adam, "Where art thou?" Both Paul and John knew where the real man lives. Paul taught that man lives and moves and has his being in God. John saw the new heaven and new earth while still on this plane of existence. He understood man's real home to be evident to spiritual consciousness alone.

Mrs. Eddy gives the meaning of God's great question in a number of places in her writings. For example, in the paragraph with the marginal heading referred to above she explains it thus (pp.307, 308): "Above error's awful din, blackness, and chaos, the voice of Truth still calls: 'Adam, where art thou? Consciousness, where art thou? Art thou dwelling in the belief that mind is in matter, and that evil is mind, or art thou in the living faith that there is and can be but one God, and keeping His commandment?'"

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