Article April 14, 1973 Issue

Free as Air

GEORGE E. J. MAHON

There is an old saying: "You can't put a gallon into a pint pot." But, in a sense, isn't this what men have been trying to do? Instead of conceiving man as the infinite expression of Spirit, God, they have thought of man's spirit, or soul, as finite, compressed within a physical body.

This notion has arisen largely because men have persisted in thinking of God and man in finite terms—God as a sort of magnified man, and man as a mixture of spirit and matter. But this belief is contrary to what we read in the Bible. For instance, at the dedication of the temple, Solomon said of God, "Behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee; how much less this house that I have builded?"^{I Kings 8:27;} And Jesus himself, talking with the woman of Samaria who came to draw water at the public well, said, "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth."^{John 4:24;}

In Science and Health Mrs. Eddy defines God not only as Spirit and Truth, but also as Mind, Soul, Principle, Life, Love. Not one of these can be measured, confined, or compressed in any way. Indeed, she writes: "The everlasting I am is not bounded nor compressed within the narrow limits of physical humanity."^{Science and Health, p. 256;}