God - and what else?

If God is almighty, then He must be infinite, All. And this infiniteness is totally good. The prophet represents God as saying, ''I am the Lord, and there is none else.''n1

n1 Isaiah 45:6.

Traditionally, God has been thought of as a frighteningly mysterious being, because His all-power is supposed to be the cause of many natural and man-made disasters afflicting mankind. No wonder we're confused by this cruel picture of God - it contradicts the Biblical declaration that He is Love.

But God remains infinite good, creating man in His image, and the confusion must go. Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writes, ''It would be contrary to our highest ideas of God to suppose Him capable of first arranging law and causation so as to bring about certain evil results, and then punishing the helpless victims of His volition for doing what they could not avoid doing.''n2

n2 Science and Health, P. 230.

Plain logic insists that there is no evil in unlimited good. Good and evil are opposites. If one of two opposites is infinite, the other must be nonexistent. Can there be any hate in a universe filled with infinite Love? How can evil occur where an infinitely good God is already and eternally All? The answer is that it can't. Divine Love expresses divine law wherewith Love's very infinity decrees that evil does not exist. Therefore evil must be a mirage, like a dream.

''Oh, come on,'' you may say - and I don't blame you. But the logic is faultless, and remains so. Infinity has to be all good or all bad. We find which it is by investigating where the power lies.

Culminating in the great healings of Christ Jesus and his disciples, Bible history conclusively shows that power is spiritual, originating only with God, good. And today, through prayer as understood in Christian Science, we can prove again the reality and victory of God, of Truth over error, Love over hate. These proofs, or healings, are achieved by acknowledging - and realizing - that God, Spirit, is indeed All, and that His creation, expressing His nature, is spiritual and perfect. Therefore in the final analysis everything unspiritual is unreal.

The effect of this prayer is to heal the individual morally and physically; also it helps to improve to some degree the earthly scene around us, bringing harmony in the midst of the woes that seem so genuine yet must be rejected as untrue. The basis of this prayer is always that God is infinite good; therefore His creation, including man as His likeness, must be good too.

Consider the divine declaration in Isaiah quoted above. Or this statement from the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: ''We bury the sense of infinitude, when we admit that, although God is infinite, evil has a place in this infinity, for evil can have no place, where all space is filled with God.''n3 As we ponder this idea, let it fill our consciousness, we'll begin to see its practicality. The Bible and Science and Health contain many such assurances, all opening the way to Truth.

n3 Ibid., p. 469.

What does Truth do for you? As you humbly yield to its government, it dispels illusions! Like the mistaken belief that you are a sinning, disease-prone mortal , subject to the whims of a part-time God. This gross misconception is healed to the extent that one clearly perceives that he is really the offspring of divine Spirit, a perfect, spiritual, immortal being.

Infinity is quite a concept for mortals to consider. But when it is understood as Love, it strikes a chord of recognition in the human heart. Pursuing this understanding in Christian Science brings healing to human suffering. The heart finds spiritual reality, not through ignoring but through denying, the assumed ''reality'' of worldly evil, and insisting on the absolute substance and power of divine Spirit, Love, which is all good. To the degree one accepts and understands Love's allness with every fiber of one's being, the promises of the Bible are fulfilled, and the joy of spiritual regeneration is found in the healing and uplifting of human life. DAILY BIBLE VERSE Know therefore this day, and consider it in thine heat, that the Lord he is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath: there is none else. Deuteronomy 4:39

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