tions. Recall the quotation from Mrs. Eddy above given that “infinite Mind is the creator and creation is the infinite image or idea emanating from this Mind” and connect with it this other: “The infinite never began nor will it ever end.”[1] Again, note the language of Mrs. Eddy: “God, without the image and likeness of Himself, would be a non-entity, or Mind inexpressed.”[2] So creation co-exists with God and is eternal, as he is eternal,[3] for in pantheism nature is identical with God. It is the phenomenon, or God manifested, as Mrs. Eddy expressly states.[4]
Why then speak of the creation of the world at all, since it is as improper as it would be to speak of God being created? It is a “trick of the trade.” Mrs. Eddy must follow her masters. In commenting on Genesis 1:1 she says expressly that we are not to understand that anything was really begun, that “the infinite has no beginning" and that the infinite is both “God and man including the universe”; that creation therefore means simply the “unfolding of Spiritual ideas and their identities.”[5] In others words, the creation spoken of in Genesis is no creation at all. It is not even anything like creation. It is education; it is the awakening of intelligence in man. It is man exercising the power of understanding and consciousness. Mrs. Eddy says: “Whatever seems to be a new creation is but the discovery of some
- ↑ S. and H. p. 245.
- ↑ S. and H. p. 303. cf. 306.
- ↑ Cf. S. and H. pp. 267 and 336.
- ↑ Cf. S. and H. p. 114.
- ↑ S. and H. p. 502f.
