rial body. God could not put Mind Into matter nor Garden of Eden infinite Spirit into finite form to dress it and keep it, — to make it beautiful or to cause it to live and grow. Man is God's reflection, needing no cultivation, but ever beautiful and complete.
Genesis ii. 16, 17. And the Lord God [Jehovah]
commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou
mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou
eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
Here the metaphor represents God, Love, as tempting
man, but the Apostle James says: “God cannot be
No temptation from God
tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any
man.” It is true that a knowledge of evil would
make man mortal. It is plain also that material
perception, gathered from the corporeal senses, constitutes
evil and mortal knowledge. But is it true that God,
good, made “the tree of life” to be the tree of death to His
own creation? Has evil the reality of good? Evil is
unreal because it is a lie, — false in every statement.
Genesis ii. 19. And out of the ground the Lord God
[Jehovah] formed every beast of the field, and every fowl
of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he
would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living
creature, that was the name thereof.
Here the lie represents God as repeating creation, but
Creation's counterfeit
doing so materially, not spiritually, and asking
a prospective sinner to help Him. Is the
Supreme Being retrograding, and is man giving up his
dignity? Was it requisite for the formation of man
