Article July 18, 1953 Issue

LISTENING FOR GOD'S VOICE

SARA B. VELTMAN

Christian Scientists accept the opening chapter of the Bible as the spiritual and true record of creation. The first record of an uttered word is in the third verse of this chapter: "And God said, Let there be light: and there was light." In this same chapter is another profoundly important utterance (verse 26): "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and 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." Is not God's utterance simply Truth's declaration of what is true?

How well for mankind had it never listened to any other than the voice of God! But in the second and third Chapters of Genesis is presented a counterfeit concept of creation, in which a talking serpent enters the picture. We read (Gen. 3:1), "He said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?" Reading further in this story, we find that the serpent is trying to convince the woman that her being is not complete in the image and likeness of God and that in order to have a well-rounded education she should also acquaint herself with evil, or material knowledge, typified by "the tree in the midst of the garden."

Upon the woman's protest that God, divine wisdom, had warned her not to eat of that tree, the serpent slyly replied, "God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." This implies that evil is a part of the divine knowing, and consequently not forbidden to man, and directly or indirectly traces all evil knowledge to God.

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