Article February 23, 2015 Issue

The only real cause

Peter Ross

Do you ever find yourself thinking, “I wonder what caused that?” In Genesis, we read two distinct accounts of creation. The first one states that “God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them” (1:27), and that “God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good” (1:31). This means that all of us, as God’s children, must be spiritual and perfect, because we are created in the image of divine Spirit. And because divine Mind knows its whole creation, anything God doesn’t know—anything that isn’t good—is no part of that creation.

So what do we make of the next chapter in Genesis, which states: “But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground” (2:6, 7)? This account of material creation is distinctly opposite to the first chapter’s account of spiritual creation. Did God, having created man in His own image (spiritual and perfect), do it all over again in a misty, material way, and compose man of the decaying dust of the earth?

We can never be separated from God, our creator.