The All-Inclusiveness of God

Duncan Sinclair

In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 275) Mrs. Eddy writes: "All substance, intelligence, wisdom, being, immortality, cause, and effect belong to God. These are His attributes, the eternal manifestations of the infinite divine Principle, Love." Thus the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science declares the all-inclusiveness of God. The words just quoted are singularly in line with those of James: "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning."

Now the fact of the allness of God is readily enough admitted; but who will say that the full significance of its meaning has been grasped? And yet, the realization in some degree of God's allness underlies every healing which takes place in Christian Science practice, because in proportion as the allness of God, good, is perceived, the unreality of whatsoever is unlike good is discerned; and clearly to discern the unreality of any form of evil means its destruction. The Christian Scientist endeavors in practice to realize God's allness; and well he knows that the more spiritual his consciousness the clearer is his realization.

But apart from the healing power of the realization of God's allness, nothing is more wonderful to contemplate than the truth that "all substance, intelligence, wisdom, being, immortality, cause, and effect belong to God." For does not the statement mean that wherever the attributes of God are evidenced, there God is known to be? Christian Science deals effectively with the false belief that good originates with mortals. Holding to the absolute truth of God's allness, it maintains that God is never separate from the good which may manifest itself; and thus is shown the way whereby mankind is saved from the fallacy of believing in what is called personal goodness. Our great Exemplar, Christ Jesus, was continually declaring, either by word or by deed, the fact of God's allness, and that of himself he could do nothing. As our Leader writes (Science and Health, p. 136), "He [Jesus] claimed no intelligence, action, nor life separate from God."

Does not Jesus' steadfast adherence to the allness of God, to the fact that not a single real quality is ever separate from God, explain his spiritual growth and the spiritual power he wielded so successfully in healing disease and sin? It was because the Master understood so perfectly the allness of God and man's inseparability from God, the divine Principle of being, that he was able to overcome the belief in the power of matter or evil, not only for himself, but in numerous instances for others as well. To Christ Jesus, God, the Father, was All-in-all,—the one and only real power; and he himself was obedient to the perfect will of God exactly in the degree that he realized the allness of God.

It is a helpful exercise for all who acknowledge the all-inclusiveness of God to be ever on the watch for good, to be ever alert to discern it; and when they do perceive it, to acknowledge it as a manifestation of the presence of God. Would not God become far more real to us if this were habitually done? Instead of believing that we are separated from God, if we understood every least manifestation of good to be a manifestation of Him, we should rarely fail to be conscious that we are always in His very presence. And since good, wherever discerned, is of God, should we not rejoice in it wherever and whenever we see it reflected by others? There is never anything to be envious of, since all good is of God, and each child of God reflects good equally with every other. It should afford the Christian Scientist the greatest happiness to encourage his fellow-men so to understand the all-inclusiveness of God and the impersonal nature of good, that their endeavors would be devoted to spiritualizing thought in order to become more conscious of the everpresence of good.

While Christian Science teaches the all-inclusiveness of God, it makes it perfectly clear that matter with all its seeming derivatives is unreal. "To infinite Spirit there is no matter,—all is Spirit, divine Principle and its idea" (Science and Health, p. 475). The understanding of the allness of God therefore necessitates the denial of the allness of matter; and the denial of the reality of matter in turn necessitates the denial of so-called material law and material power. And thus the Christian Scientist, holding to the truth of God's allness, is able, according to the measure of his understanding, to destroy in human consciousness the seeming power of matter or evil. Without question, the greatest task before mankind is to become increasingly conscious of the allness of God, of God's all-inclusiveness; for thereby the shadows of sorrow, sin, and disease are made to pass away.

Duncan Sinclair

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