Article January 4, 1988 Issue

What is God the Father of?

Between God, who is limitless Mind, and the human being there may seem to be an almost infinite distance. Yet God is our Father. How is this seeming gap bridged?

William Welsh Holland

When I first began studying Christian Science, I was perplexed by a fundamental truism of Christianity: the teaching that God is the Father of all men and women. At first, this seemed a self-evident falsity—like believing that babies are dropped off by storks or grow in cabbage patches. It appeared so obvious that my presence on this planet was directly attributable to my biological parents. There seemed no need to write a supernatural agency into the script.

And yet I knew Christ Jesus had commanded, "Call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven." Matt. 23:9. I puzzled over this discrepancy between what common sense told me and this basic Christian precept: God is our Father. "In what sense?" I asked myself.

Gradually, through my study of Christian Science, I gained a largely intellectual conviction that God, divine Mind, was the Father of whatever spiritual identity I possessed. But for some time I felt this spiritual identity must not have a lot to do with who and what I was right then. Without realizing it, I came to see myself as a person affirming spiritual truths about a God who is Mind but not my Mind at that moment.

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