mother “What do you call it?” and get into worse trouble. The mother feels that her babe is something infinitely more than an it. Her child is a human being, a person, and is not to be thought of as a thing either finite or infinite.
Let us first examine Mrs. Eddy's statements. “Person is formed after the manner of mortal man, so far as he can conceive of personality. Limitless personality is inconceivable. * * * Of God as a person, human reason, imagination and revelation give us no knowledge;”[1] “God is Love; and Love is principle, not person;”[2] “The world believes in many persons; but if God is personal, there is but one person, because there is but one God.”[3] In the first edition of Science and Health the personality of God is more boldly denied than in the one of 1911.[4]
Again she says: “If the term personality, as applied to God, means infinite personality, then God is infinite person,—in the sense of infinite personality, but not in the lower sense.”[5] This language is very interesting. If God is to be thought of as personal, it is not a person that he is, but limitless personality, which Mrs. Eddy says is inconceivable. If God is personal then there is but one person and accordingly a man is not a person. The essence of Mrs. Eddy's statements is that if we think of God as person we must not
- ↑ No and Yes p. 28f.
- ↑ No and Yes p. 28.
- ↑ S. and H. p. 517.
- ↑ Cf. pp. 20 and 227.
- ↑ S. and H. p. 116.
