Article October 16, 1978 Issue

Don't believe in pantheism

LORELEI F. ECKEY

The fundamentals of pantheism, as a philosophical theory, are well represented by the teachings of the Greek Stoics in the third century B.C. Stoicism included the beliefs that God and nature were one and that what we would call spirit and matter were in absolute union.

This old theory seems as prevalent as ever today whenever one believes there is a partnership between the spiritual and the material, between the life-giving and its opposite, between the intelligent and the nonintelligent. The consequences of such concepts are certainly not helpful to mankind.

In Christian Science, Spirit, Life, Soul, Mind, are synonyms for the one God. The belief that God can be in matter or can be in any way dependent on matter is pantheistic. Mrs. Eddy says in Science and Health, "The theory, that Spirit is distinct from matter but must pass through it, or into it, to be individualized, would reduce God to dependency on matter, and establish a basis for pantheism." Science and Health, p. 335;

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