Article May 9, 1953 Issue

THE GREAT TRUTH OF GOD'S FATHERHOOD

BETTIE BOONE SALEM

Of the many names by which God is known among the peoples of the world, perhaps none is more universally acknowledged than Father. The Lord's Prayer with its salutation, "Our Father which art in heaven," is generally learned in childhood and usually remains beloved thereafter, even by those who do not profess to be churchgoers. However, it was through the discovery of Christian Science by Mary Baker Eddy that the term Father, as designating God, was enlightened and lifted away from material restrictions into the divinity of true fatherhood.

Mrs. Eddy writes in "No and Yes" (p. 20), "Error would fashion Deity in a manlike mould, while Truth is moulding a Godlike man." Have not many Christians been deceived into fashioning Deity after the likeness of mankind? How often has God, the Father, been misconceived as changeable, tyrannical, demanding what humanity cannot give, punishing the innocent and condemning the helpless sinner to eternal sorrow, leaving men destitute of guidance and affection, setting up a barrier between Himself and them, limited in His authority and dominion. How often have sickness and death been accepted as the Father's will! What a poor counterfeit of fatherhood this implies! Surely it does not describe the incorporeal God of whom the Psalmist sang (Ps. 18:2): "The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower."

And the master Christian, Christ Jesus—what of the righteous Father whom he revealed? Is it not divine Love that Jesus described when he said (Luke 12:32), "Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom"? Let us, as Christians, rejoice in the Father's "good pleasure." And let us, as Christian Scientists, be gratefully alert to our Leader's admonition in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 13), "If we pray to God as a corporeal person, this will prevent us from relinquishing the human doubts and fears which attend such a belief, and so we cannot grasp the wonders wrought by infinite, incorporeal Love, to whom all things are possible."

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