Article November 1, 2013

Choosing life

Clifford P. Smith

Originally published in the May 22, 1909 issue of The Christian Science Monitor

The Bible opens with a recital of the facts respecting the creation of all things, in which man is created by God after His own likeness and to be good and fruitful. This is followed by an account of the creation of a different and contrary kind of man—a man created from dust and liable to evil and death. These two accounts, known to Bible students as the Elohistic and the Jehovistic accounts of creation, from their different names for the creator, are essentially inconsistent. The man described in the one does not image the same creator as the man described in the other. The second man lacks the essential qualities of the first. Their attributes differ as good differs from evil and life from death.

When any theist—any believer in the existence of one creator and ruler of the universe—examines and compares these accounts of creation, his conclusions respecting them will depend on his definition of God. Christian Scientists are theists and they join the Psalmist in declaring “Thou art good and doest good.” They accept the Scriptural assurances that God is Love, Spirit, Mind, Truth, Life; and they acknowledge the axiom which Christ Jesus laid down when he said, “Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt.”

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