Page:Christian Science versus Pantheism.djvu/55

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MESSAGE FOR 1901
41

his creed, or has no possible conception of ours, who believes that three persons are defined strictly by the word Person, or as One; for if Person is God, and he believes three persons constitute the Godhead, does not Person here lose the nature of one God, lose monotheism, and become less coherent than the Christian Scientist's sense of Person as one divine infinite triune Principle, named in the Bible Life, Truth, Love? — for each of these possesses the nature of all, and God omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient.

Man is person; therefore divine metaphysics discriminates between God and man, the creator and the created, by calling one the divine Principle of all. This suggests another query: Do Christian Scientists believe in personality? They do, but their personality is defined spiritually, not materially — by Mind, not by matter. We do not blot out the material race of Adam, but leave all sin to God's fiat — self-extinction, and to the final manifestation of the real spiritual man and universe. We believe, according to the Scriptures, that God is infinite Spirit or Person, and man is His image and likeness: therefore man reflects Spirit, not matter.

We are not transcendentalists to the extent of extinguishing anything that is real, good, or true; for God and man in divine Science, or the logic of Truth, are coexistent and eternal, and the nature of God must be seen in man, who is His eternal image and likeness.

The theological God as a Person necessitates a creed to explain both His person and nature, whereas God explains Himself in Christian Science. Is the human person,