Article October 20, 1956 Issue

THE FORMATIONS OF SPIRIT

JEANNE STEELY LAITNER

"Spirit and its formations are the only realities of being. Matter disappears under the microscope of Spirit." The profound truth stated in these two simple sentences from "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy (p. 264) challenges centuries of belief in a materially formed universe and a materially formed man. Theories of creation based upon the material evolution of man lose their power to limit us when we accept the fact that Spirit, God, is the one creator.

The first verse in Genesis thus concisely summarizes the creation accepted by Christian Science as actual: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." And regarding the creation of man, this remarkable statement is made (1: 27): "God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." No mention is made in either of these statements of matter, of material law, or of heredity. Nor is man described as subject to any power other than that of his creator.

The great prophetic workers repeatedly demonstrated their divinely inspired knowledge that man and the universe are formations of Mind, God, and not of matter or material processes. Moses triumphantly proved his spiritual understanding of God as the one cause, the great I AM. Moses insisted upon God's delivering power, and as a result, the Red Sea, a material formation, became a way of escape rather than an obstruction. Elijah found God not in the wind or earthquake, but in a still small voice. Heeding this still small voice of divine Mind enabled Elijah to overcome matter and its laws so entirely that he was later translated.

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