Science and Health with Key to The Scriptures
CHAPTER IX
CREATION
Thy throne is established of old Thou art from
everlasting. - PSALMS. |
For we know that the whole creation groaneth and
travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also,
which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within
ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our
body. - PAUL. |
Inadequate theories of creation
|
ETERNAL Truth is changing the universe. As mortals
drop off their mental swaddling-clothes, thought expands into expression. "Let
there be light," is the perpetual demand of Truth and Love, changing chaos into
order and discord into the music of the spheres. The mythical human theories of
creation, anciently classified as the higher criticism, sprang from cultured
scholars in Rome and in Greece, but they afforded no foundation for accurate
views of creation by the divine Mind. |
Finite views of Deity
|
Mortal man has made a covenant with his eyes to
belittle Deity with human conceptions. In league with material sense, mortals
take limited views of all things. That God is corporeal or material, no man
should affirm. The human form, or physical finiteness, cannot be made the basis
of any true idea of the infinite Godhead. Eye hath not seen Spirit, nor hath
ear heard His voice. |
No material creation |
Progress takes off human shackles. The finite must
yield to the infinite. Advancing to a higher plane of action, thought rises
from the material sense to the spiritual, from the scholastic to the
inspirational, and from the mortal to the immortal. All things are created
spiritually. Mind, not matter, is the creator. Love, the divine Principle, is
the Father and Mother of the universe, including man. |
Tritheism impossible |
The theory of three persons in one God (that is, a
personal Trinity or Tri-unity) suggests polytheism, rather than the one
ever-present I AM. "Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord." |
No divine corporeality
|
The everlasting I AM is not bounded nor compressed
within the narrow limits of physical humanity, nor can He be understood aright
through mortal concepts. The precise form of God must be of small importance in
comparison with the sublime question, What is infinite Mind or divine Love? Who
is it that demands our obedience? He who, in the language of Scripture, "doeth
according to His will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the
earth; and none can stay His hand, or say unto Him, What doest Thou?" No form
nor physical combination is adequate to represent infinite Love. A finite and
material sense of God leads to formalism and narrowness; it chills the spirit
of Christianity. |
Limitless Mind |
A limitless Mind cannot proceed from physical
limitations. Finiteness cannot present the idea or the vastness of infinity. A
mind originating from a finite or material source must be limited and finite.
Infinite Mind is the creator, and creation is the infinite image or idea
emanating from this Mind. If Mind is within and without all things, then all is
Mind; and this definition is scientific. |
Matter is not substance
|
If matter, so-called, is substance, then Spirit,
matter's unlikeness, must be shadow; and shadow cannot produce substance. The
theory that Spirit is not the only substance and creator is pantheistic
heterodoxy, which ultimates in sickness, sin, and death; it is the belief in a
bodily soul and a material mind, a soul governed by the body and a mind in
matter. This belief is shallow pantheism. Mind creates His own likeness in
ideas, and the substance of an idea is very far from being the supposed
substance of non-intelligent matter. Hence the Father Mind is not the father of
matter. The material senses and human conceptions would translate spiritual
ideas into material beliefs, and would say that an anthropomorphic God, instead
of infinite Principle, in other words, divine Love, is the father of the rain,
"who hath begotten the drops of dew," who bringeth "forth Mazzaroth in his
season," and guideth "Arcturus with his sons." |
Inexhaustible divine Love
|
Finite mind manifests all sorts of errors, and thus
proves the material theory of mind in matter to be the antipode of Mind. Who
hath found finite life or love sufficient to meet the demands of human want and
woe, to still the desires, to satisfy the aspirations? Infinite Mind cannot be
limited to a finite form, or Mind would lose its infinite character as
inexhaustible Love, eternal Life, omnipotent Truth. |
Infinite physique impossible
|
It would require an infinite form to contain infinite
Mind. Indeed, the phrase infinite form involves a contradiction of
terms. Finite man cannot be the image and likeness of the infinite God. A
mortal, corporeal, or finite conception of God cannot embrace the glories of
limitless, incorporeal Life and Love. Hence the unsatisfied human craving for
something better, higher, holier, than is afforded by a material belief in a
physical God and man. The insufficiency of this belief to supply the true idea
proves the falsity of material belief. |
Infinity's reflection
|
Man is more than a material form with a mind inside,
which must escape from its environments in order to be immortal. Man reflects
infinity, and this reflection is the true idea of God. God expresses in man the
infinite idea forever developing itself, broadening and rising higher and
higher from a boundless basis. Mind manifests all that exists in the infinitude
of Truth. We know no more of man as the true divine image and likeness, than we
know of God. The infinite Principle is reflected by the infinite idea and
spiritual individuality, but the material so-called senses have no cognizance
of either Principle or its idea. The human capacities are enlarged and
perfected in proportion as humanity gains the true conception of man and God.
|
Individual permanency |
Mortals have a very imperfect sense of the spiritual
man and of the infinite range of his thought. To him belongs eternal Life.
Never born and never dying, it were impossible for man, under the government of
God in eternal Science, to fall from his high estate. |
God's man discerned |
Through spiritual sense you can discern the heart of
divinity, and thus begin to comprehend in Science the generic term man.
Man is not absorbed in Deity, and man cannot lose his individuality, for he
reflects eternal Life; nor is he an isolated, solitary idea, for he represents
infinite Mind, the sum of all substance. In divine Science, man is the true
image of God. The divine nature was best expressed in Christ Jesus, who threw
upon mortals the truer reflection of God and lifted their lives higher than
their poor thought-models would allow, thoughts which presented man as fallen,
sick, sinning, and dying. The Christlike understanding of scientific being and
divine healing includes a perfect Principle and idea, perfect God and perfect
man, as the basis of thought and demonstration. |
The divine image not lost
|
If man was once perfect but has now lost his
perfection, then mortals have never beheld in man the reflex image of God. The
lost image is no image. The true likeness cannot be lost in divine
reflection. Understanding this, Jesus said: "Be ye therefore perfect, even as
your Father which is in heaven is perfect." |
Immortal models |
Mortal thought transmits its own images, and forms
its offspring after human illusions. God, Spirit, works spiritually, not
materially. Brain or matter never formed a human concept. Vibration is not
intelligence; hence it is not a creator. Immortal ideas, pure, perfect, and
enduring, are transmitted by the divine Mind through divine Science, which
corrects error with truth and demands spiritual thoughts, divine concepts, to
the end that they may produce harmonious results. Deducing one's conclusions as
to man from imperfection instead of perfection, one can no more arrive at the
true conception or understanding of man, and make himself like it, than the
sculptor can perfect his outlines from an imperfect model, or the painter can
depict the form and face of Jesus, while holding in thought the character of
Judas. |
Spiritual discovery |
The conceptions of mortal, erring thought must give
way to the ideal of all that is perfect and eternal. Through many generations
human beliefs will be attaining diviner conceptions, and the immortal and
perfect model of God's creation will finally be seen as the only true
conception of being. Science reveals the possibility of achieving all good, and
sets mortals at work to discover what God has already done; but distrust of
one's ability to gain the goodness desired and to bring out better and higher
results, often hampers the trial of one's wings and ensures failure at the
outset. |
Requisite change of our ideals
|
Mortals must change their ideals in order to improve
their models. A sick body is evolved from sick thoughts. Sickness, disease, and
death proceed from fear. Sensualism evolves bad physical and moral conditions.
Selfishness and sensualism are educated in mortal mind by the thoughts ever
recurring to one's self, by conversation about the body, and by the expectation
of perpetual pleasure or pain from it; and this education is at the expense of
spiritual growth. If we array thought in mortal vestures, it must lose its
immortal nature. |
Thoughts are things |
If we look to the body for pleasure, we find pain;
for Life, we find death; for Truth, we find error; for Spirit, we find its
opposite, matter. Now reverse this action. Look away from the body into Truth
and Love, the Principle of all happiness, harmony, and immortality. Hold
thought steadfastly to the enduring, the good, and the true, and you will bring
these into your experience proportionably to their occupancy of your thoughts.
|
Unreality of pain |
The effect of mortal mind on health and happiness is
seen in this: If one turns away from the body with such absorbed interest as to
forget it, the body experiences no pain. Under the strong impulse of a desire
to perform his part, a noted actor was accustomed night after night to go upon
the stage and sustain his appointed task, walking about as actively as the
youngest member of the company. This old man was so lame that he hobbled every
day to the theatre, and sat aching in his chair till his cue was spoken, a
signal which made him as oblivious of physical infirmity as if he had inhaled
chloroform, though he was in the full possession of his so-called senses.
|
Immutable identity of man
|
Detach sense from the body, or matter, which is only a
form of human belief, and you may learn the meaning of God, or good, and the
nature of the immutable and immortal. Breaking away from the mutations of time
and sense, you will neither lose the solid objects and ends of life nor your
own identity. Fixing your gaze on the realities supernal, you will rise to the
spiritual consciousness of being, even as the bird which has burst from the egg
and preens its wings for a skyward flight. |
Forgetfulness of self
|
We should forget our bodies in remembering good and
the human race. Good demands of man every hour, in which to work out the
problem of being. Consecration to good does not lessen man's dependence on God,
but heightens it. Neither does consecration diminish man's obligations to God,
but shows the paramount necessity of meeting them. Christian Science takes
naught from the perfection of God, but it ascribes to Him the entire glory. By
putting "off the old man with his deeds," mortals "put on immortality." We
cannot fathom the nature and quality of God's creation by diving into the
shallows of mortal belief. We must reverse our feeble flutterings our efforts
to find life and truth in matter and rise above the testimony of the material
senses, above the mortal to the immortal idea of God. These clearer, higher
views inspire the God like man to reach the absolute centre and circumference
of his being. |
The true sense |
Job said: "I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the
ear: but now mine eye seeth Thee." Mortals will echo Job's thought, when the
supposed pain and pleasure of matter cease to predominate. They will then drop
the false estimate of life and happiness, of joy and sorrow, and attain the
bliss of loving unselfishly, working patiently, and conquering all that is
unlike God. Starting from a higher standpoint, one rises spontaneously, even as
light emits light without effort; for "where your treasure is, there will your
heart be also." |
Mind only the cause |
The foundation of mortal discord is a false sense of
man's origin. To begin rightly is to end rightly. Every concept which seems to
begin with the brain begins falsely. Divine Mind is the only cause or Principle
of existence. Cause does not exist in matter, in mortal mind, or in physical
forms. |
Human egotism |
Mortals are egotists. They believe themselves to be
independent workers, personal authors, and even privileged originators of
something which Deity would not or could not create. The creations of mortal
mind are material. Immortal spiritual man alone represents the truth of
creation. |
Mortal man a mis-creator
|
When mortal man blends his thoughts of existence with
the spiritual and works only as God works, he will no longer grope in the dark
and cling to earth because he has not tasted heaven. Carnal beliefs defraud us.
They make man an involuntary hypocrite, producing evil when he would create
good, forming deformity when he would outline grace and beauty, injuring those
whom he would bless. He becomes a general mis-creator, who believes he is a
semi-god. His "touch turns hope to dust, the dust we all have trod." He might
say in Bible language: "The good that I would, I do not: but the evil which I
would not, that I do." |
No new creation |
There can be but one creator, who has created all.
Whatever seems to be a new creation, is but the discovery of some distant idea
of Truth; else it is a new multiplication or self-division of mortal thought,
as when some finite sense peers from its cloister with amazement and attempts
to pattern the infinite. The multiplication of a human and mortal sense of
persons and things is not creation. A sensual thought, like an atom of dust
thrown into the face of spiritual immensity, is dense blindness instead of a
scientific eternal consciousness of creation. |
Mind's true camera |
The fading forms of matter, the mortal body and
material earth, are the fleeting concepts of the human mind. They have their
day before the permanent facts and their perfection in Spirit appear. The crude
creations of mortal thought must finally give place to the glorious forms which
we sometimes behold in the camera of divine Mind, when the mental picture is
spiritual and eternal. Mortals must look beyond fading, finite forms, if they
would gain the true sense of things. Where shall the gaze rest but in the
unsearchable realm of Mind? We must look where we would walk, and we must act
as possessing all power from Him in whom we have our being. |
Self-completeness |
As mortals gain more correct views of God and man,
multitudinous objects of creation, which before were invisible, will become
visible. When we realize that Life is Spirit, never in nor of matter, this
understanding will expand into self-completeness, finding all in God, good, and
needing no other consciousness. |
Spiritual proofs of existence
|
Spirit and its formations are the only realities of
being. Matter disappears under the microscope of Spirit. Sin is unsustained by
Truth, and sickness and death were overcome by Jesus, who proved them to be
forms of error. Spiritual living and blessedness are the only evidences, by
which we can recognize true existence and feel the unspeakable peace which
comes from an all-absorbing spiritual love. When we learn the way in Christian
Science and recognize man's spiritual being, we shall behold and understand
God's creation, all the glories of earth and heaven and man. |
Godward gravitation |
The universe of Spirit is peopled with spiritual
beings, and its government is divine Science. Man is the offspring, not of the
lowest, but of the highest qualities of Mind. Man understands spiritual
existence in proportion as his treasures of Truth and Love are enlarged.
Mortals must gravitate Godward, their affections and aims grow spiritual, they
must near the broader interpretations of being, and gain some proper sense of
the infinite, in order that sin and mortality may be put off. This scientific
sense of being, forsaking matter for Spirit, by no means suggests man's
absorption into Deity and the loss of his identity, but confers upon man
enlarged individuality, a wider sphere of thought and action, a more expansive
love, a higher and more permanent peace. |
Mortal birth and death |
The senses represent birth as untimely and death as
irresistible, as if man were a weed growing apace or a flower withered by the
sun and nipped by untimely frosts; but this is true only of a mortal, not of a
man in God's image and likeness. The truth of being is perennial, and the error
is unreal and obsolete. |
Blessings from pain |
Who that has felt the loss of human peace has not
gained stronger desires for spiritual joy? The aspiration after heavenly good
comes even before we discover what belongs to wisdom and Love. The loss of
earthly hopes and pleasures brightens the ascending path of many a heart. The
pains of sense quickly inform us that the pleasures of sense are mortal and
that joy is spiritual. |
Decapitation of error
|
The pains of sense are salutary, if they wrench away
false pleasurable beliefs and transplant the affections from sense to Soul,
where the creations of God are good, "rejoicing the heart." Such is the sword
of Science, with which Truth decapitates error, materiality giving place to
man's higher individuality and destiny. |
Uses of adversity |
Would existence without personal friends be to you a
blank? Then the time will come when you will be solitary, left without
sympathy; but this seeming vacuum is already filled with divine Love. When this
hour of development comes, even if you cling to a sense of personal joys,
spiritual Love will force you to accept what best promotes your growth. Friends
will betray and enemies will slander, until the lesson is sufficient to exalt
you; for "man's extremity is God's opportunity." The author has experienced the
foregoing prophecy and its blessings. Thus He teaches mortals to lay down their
fleshliness and gain spirituality. This is done through self-abnegation.
Universal Love is the divine way in Christian Science. The sinner makes his own
hell by doing evil, and the saint his own heaven by doing right. The opposite
persecutions of material sense, aiding evil with evil, would deceive the very
elect. |
Beatific presence |
Mortals must follow Jesus' sayings and his
demonstrations, which dominate the flesh. Perfect and infinite Mind enthroned
is heaven. The evil beliefs which originate in mortals are hell. Man is the
idea of Spirit; he reflects the beatific presence, illuming the universe with
light. Man is deathless, spiritual. He is above sin or frailty. He does not
cross the barriers of time into the vast forever of Life, but he coexists with
God and the universe. |
The infinitude of God |
Every object in material thought will be destroyed,
but the spiritual idea, whose substance is in Mind, is eternal. The offspring
of God start not from matter or ephemeral dust. They are in and of Spirit,
divine Mind, and so forever continue. God is one. The allness of Deity is His
oneness. Generically man is one, and specifically man means all men. It is
generally conceded that God is Father, eternal, self-created, infinite. If this
is so, the forever Father must have had children prior to Adam. The great I AM
made all "that was made." Hence man and the spiritual universe coexist with
God. Christian Scientists understand that, in a religious sense, they have the
same authority for the appellative mother, as for that of brother and sister.
Jesus said: "For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven,
the same is my brother, and sister, and mother." |
Waymarks to eternal Truth
|
When examined in the light of divine Science, mortals
present more than is detected upon the surface, since inverted thoughts and
erroneous beliefs must be counterfeits of Truth. Thought is borrowed from a
higher source than matter, and by reversal, errors serve as waymarks to the one
Mind, in which all error disappears in celestial Truth. The robes of Spirit are
"white and glistering," like the raiment of Christ. Even in this world,
therefore, "let thy garments be always white." "Blessed is the man that
endureth [overcometh] temptation: for when he is tried, [proved faithful], he
shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love
him." (James i. 12.) |
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