Article July 14, 1980 Issue

The nothingness of "bothness"

RICHARD L. GERSON

What is the origin of being? What is the actual source of all that exists?

The first two chapters of Genesis contain directly opposite accounts of the beginning of things. The first relates divine Spirit's creation of a wholly spiritual universe, including man, which God pronounces very good. The second describes the formation of an Adamic man and material universe by the "Lord God." One account is divine fact, the other fiction. Which are we to accept?

Christian Science emphatically supports the first: Spirit, the divine Mind, and its spiritual universe. If Spirit is All—and the Scriptures repeatedly declare God's allness—man cannot be both spiritual and material, which is generally believed to be the case. Our Leader, Mrs. Eddy, writes, "From first to last the supposed coexistence of Mind and matter and the mingling of good and evil have resulted from the philosophy of the serpent."^{Science and Health, p. 269;}