think of a man as a person, and if we think of a man as a person we must not think of God as person; for to think of God as person is to think of him as a person and this would spoil all her theology. So if we ascribe personality to God, we must be careful not to let the word have any of the meaning which it does have when English speaking people use it. What is the trouble with Mrs. Eddy? Why is it that she can make such a ridiculous statement as that God is not a person but that he is personality? Why does she have to “split hairs” in this fashion? She is in a “strait betwixt two.” When necessity is the mother of invention the offspring may be something quite unnatural. She cannot say that God is a person because she does not believe this, and because such a statement would tear out the keystone of her metaphysical system and cause the whole massive structure to fall in a pile. On the other hand it would not be wise for Mrs. Eddy to tell us plainly that she is going to rob us of our beautiful conception of God as a being of will, forethought, design, moral qualities and moral relations. But this is what she is attempting to do nevertheless, and in order to perform this operation pleasantly upon us she works the trick of extracting all the meaning out of the word, and then assures us, with the assumption of great wisdom and with amazing calmness, “God is in the higher sense personal, yes, God is infinite personality.”
Why is it impossible for Mrs. Eddy to say that God is a person? Because God is infinite
