Editorial December 17, 1966 Issue

Expanding Our Understanding of God

Helen Wood Bauman

What could be more important to those who believe in God than an expanding of their understanding of Him? When I was a child, I thought of God simply as God. It did not occur to me that He was Life and Truth or that my limited concept of Him could be expanded. Later on, when Christian Science began to enlighten me on the subject of God's infinitude, many terms which Science attributes to Deity opened glorious views of Him. I learned that each term has a definite relation to man, who is His inseparable expression, His likeness, and that I could prove my true sonship with Him by reflecting His nature, which the many terms imply. With this expanding understanding of spiritual reality came health and the restoration of long-lost vitality. My horizons widened.

Infinitude cannot be grasped through a single term, and each right name for God brings us nearer an understanding of Him as the infinite One. Christian Science reveals seven synonyms for God, names either stated or implied in the Bible: Spirit, Life, Truth, Love, Soul, Mind, Principle. But Science does not stop there; it gives many terms other than these synonyms, such as intelligence, substance, All-in-all, First Cause, Father-Mother, Infinity, Being.

Many centuries ago Moses received the self-revelation of God as the I am (see Ex. 3:14), and this explains the great fact of God as Ego, or consciousness, as infinite Mind without an equal. What can call itself "I" but consciousness? Even man, God's highest creation, can only reflect Mind, the one I. Otherwise there would be many egos, many gods, and the result would be chaos. But there isn't chaos, and the divine order is becoming more and more apparent as the oneness of Mind is understood.

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