When we endow matter with vague spiritual power, —
that is, when we do so in our theories, for of course we
Unescapable dilemma
cannot really endow matter with what it does
not and cannot possess, — we disown the
Almighty, for such theories lead to one of two things. They
either presuppose the self-evolution and self-government
of matter, or else they assume that matter is the product
of Spirit. To seize the first horn of this dilemma and
consider matter as a power in and of itself, is to leave the
creator out of His own universe; while to grasp the other
horn of the dilemma and regard God as the creator of
matter, is not only to make Him responsible for all disasters,
physical and moral, but to announce Him as their
source, thereby making Him guilty of maintaining perpetual
misrule in the form and under the name of natural
law.
In one sense God is identical with nature, but this nature is spiritual and is not expressed in matter. The God and nature lawgiver, whose lightning palsies or prostrates in death the child at prayer, is not the divine ideal of omnipresent Love. God is natural good, and is represented only by the idea of goodness; while evil should be regarded as unnatural, because it is opposed to the nature of Spirit, God.
In viewing the sunrise, one finds that it contradicts the evidence before the senses to believe that the earth The sun and Soul is in motion and the sun at rest. As astronomy reverses the human perception of the movement of the solar system, so Christian Science reverses the seeming relation of Soul and body and makes so body tributary to Mind. Thus it is with man, who is but the humble servant of the restful Mind, though it
