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Story of Progress Long has there been a
general belief that man is a being separated from God, even the belief that
he is a creature essentially sinful in nature, doomed to eternal punishment unless
redeemed. Man has considered himself to be an individual struggling to eke
out an existence; searching for happiness through the turmoil of earthly
life, while his God sits upon a throne in some far-distant heaven. God has
appeared quite indifferent to man’s struggle, for He seems neither to
intervene to prevent disaster nor to assist any individual, but allows events
to take their due course. No longer need man accept
these old beliefs, for light is now shed upon the truth of man. The new
thought reveals that man is one with God. Since God is All, then
logically man is included within God and is one with Him and with all
creation. Man accepting himself as a son and heir of God may learn to
appropriate for his own use the attributes or inherencies of God – His
wisdom, love, knowledge, understanding, power, life and joy. He may learn to
use God-guidance, God-protection, and God-peace if he chooses to avail
himself of his birthright. This is the revelation
that Divine Science brings to mankind for his joy and happiness. There are
definite steps of growth and unfoldment necessary before the realization of
this wonderful truth of oneness can be fully ours. Be an earnest student; put
into thinking and practice all that you learn as you proceed, and be expectant
of results which formerly you would have thought unbelievable. Chapter 3 God and Man are One And God said, let us make man in our
image, after our likeness. Genesis 1:26
Questions to alert your thinking
In order to understand and
accept the truth concerning the reality of good and the unreality of evil, it
will be necessary to consider the source or beginning of all that is. In
order to reason aright we must determine the first and originating cause. In the beginning God – God
the Uncreate, the perfect Mind, the only source, the omnipresent Principle,
the eternal Spirit – created. All is contained within God, the perfect Mind, the cause of all
that is, the source of all form. God, the Uncreate, creates. There is only
god. God the Good, eternal and changeless; God the Good, the source of all,
perfect and good; God, the beginning out of which were all things made which
were made. “And God saw everything that he had made, and , behold, it was
very good.” Genesis 1:31 Creation is the emanation
of life and substance from the one original Source which can only be the
infinite, omnipresent, eternal and changeless God. Creator being the Source
is therefore the substance of its creation, as the fountain is the substance
of its stream; as the tree is the source and substance of its branches and
fruit; as the bay is one with the ocean of which it is an extension. The emanation of the life
and substance of God into creation must mean that the life and substance of
creation is as perfect as that of the Creator, God Himself. The essence of
all created things must, by logical reasoning, be eternal Spirit-Substance
and the idea of each created form must be held within God-Mind in order to
maintain existence. All creation is within the Creator, or Source, before
coming into form, for in the Invisible is the eternal Idea of all that makes
up creation, while in the visible is the expression or living form of Idea.
Reason tells us that it is necessarily true that all living forms are
included within Omnipresence, since Omnipresence embraces ALL within itself. Creation is God in
Self-manifestation. Divine Science explains the law and order of perfect
God-Mind involving itself within creation, revealing itself in form as nature
and mankind. “I am the beginning and the end, the first and the last.” Rev.
22:13 The universal Spirit, the only life and substance is the beginning, the
source. That which emanates from this One is the end; it too is Spirit, for
there is but one presence, on life, and one substance. Creation is Spirit.
Everything begins and ends as Spirit. God is omnipresent Principle. Principle
is thus defined by Webster: “The source and origin, that from which anything
proceeds; the beginning, the first.” It is first cause wherein we find the
true nature of all things. Then with God as our beginning our nature is
decided by His. Divine Science has taught
these truths from the time of its founding; has taught that Spirit and
Substance are two aspects of the same reality, God. Divine Science has always
taught that Spirit expresses by means of substance; it has always taught that
so-called matter is pure divine energy manifested as form; it repeatedly
points out that Substance is Spirit. Divine Science feels a
great debt of gratitude to the present day natural scientists and physicists
for their discoveries which confirm the Divine Science position. Eddington,
Jeans, and Millikan are out-spoken in their declaration that what has been
called “solid matter” is in fact more space than solid and is very much alive
since it consists of charges of energy vibrating about a central charge, like
planets around a central sun. Many scientists state further that everything
they have found points to the truth that “the universe is a great
thought,” and that the stuff of which it is made is Mind-Stuff. It is with the assurance
of confident knowing that Divine Science teaches the concept of God as
Universal Mind and man as a thought in that eternal Mind. It confidently
affirms the following conclusions:
Man then is eternally one
with the infinite Source and in nature is the image and likeness of the
Eternal as it expresses in living form. This is the truth of which Jesus was
fully conscious for he declared, “I and my Father are on.” John 10:30 There
is but one source of all, God. Man is one with God, hence he is like God.
That which begins in Spirit is Spirit to the end. Since all that is has its
source in Spirit, we can confidently say, “All is Spirit.” God and man cannot
be separated. God is Spirit Universal and is expressed and manifest as living
soul and body. Spirit contains within itself all souls and bodies before they
are expressed, just as the vine hold branches and fruit within itself before
they are expressed or pressed out. All of man’s possibilities
lie in the truth that is divine as is his Creator with whom he is one. He is
one with God whose nature is love, wisdom, knowledge, understanding, power,
life and joy. These are known as the inherencies of God, and they are the
attributes which man inherits by nature of his oneness with God. Man is one
with God who is omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient. Think deeply of
this. Concentrated thinking upon
the broadness of this thought brings out some degree of God’s infinitude,
some idea of the fullness that is all in all. Try as we may, enlarge our
thought of it as much as we possibly can, we can scarcely comprehend the
fullness and infinitude of God. To illumine this idea and to start the
stretching of our thinking, let us place before each of the inherencies of
God the word, infinite, and after the word, omnipresent, in
this way: Infinite
Love, omnipresent Infinite
Wisdom, omnipresent Infinite
Knowledge, omnipresent Infinite
Understanding, omnipresent Infinite
Power, omnipresent Infinite
Life, omnipresent Infinite
Joy, omnipresent As words, these may be
read off glibly, but to think deeply on each one opens man’s consciousness to
a new realization of his Source and of his own potentialities. There is only one Mind,
one Substance, one Source, one Presence, one Power, one Life – All Good.
Although Truth is omnipresent and changeless; although man lives, moves, and
has his being in God, the All Good; although he dwells in the kingdom of
heaven, if he is not conscious of it, he may go on his way lacking many
things and losing the blessedness that IS his. “Heirs of God, joint-heirs
with Christ,” men may, through ignorance of the truth, be slaves of misery,
doubt, and poverty. It is KNOWING the truth that makes man free. Man gives a
sense of reality and power to evil when he fails to recognize that his
source, his life, his very existence through time and eternity is God the
Good. Truth must be recognized in order to be realized and to become a power
in the lives of men. Ignorance of the truth of
his Being does not alter man’s true nature, for the REALITY of man never
changes. Ignorance is the seeming great delusion of the world. It unknowingly
takes things for what they are not;
that is, takes the expression for the Expresser, the body for the
source of Self, the brain for the source of Mind, the letter for the Spirit
and, in general, causes a sense of disorder or disease. As students of science we
start with a new concept of man, an idea which may be new to our thought, but
which is eternal in Truth. As man understands that his true state, his
eternal nature, is perfect since he is one with his perfect Source, he claims
his own perfection as something innately his, implanted within him by the
divine Mind, not something which he has earned or which comes to him from
outside himself. As his vision enlarges,
the perfect unity between the Divine and all mankind is revealed to the
consciousness of man. He begins, dimly at first, to glimpse the truth of his
sonship; gradually he sees the everlasting nature of all things. The divine
nature can never be lost for it is an eternal truth, and sooner or later
everyone must awaken to its presence within him. Eventually each one will be
able to say, “I am because God is, God is the reason or cause of my being,
the source of my existence. All that I am must be found in God, and most
truly I cannot be something that my source is not. My source decides
my nature. The stream is like the fountain from which it flows.” Jesus was quoting from the
Old testament when he gave but two commandments: “Thou shalt love the Lord
they God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.”
Deut. 6:5, and “ . . . thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself . . .” Lev.
19:18. These commandments are fulfilled as man recognizes the perfect nature
in all creation. When we realize the oneness and divinity of Life in all
things we sense a universal justice, strength, and harmony back of all
creation which when understood will be expressed as love. Understanding that
the whole of Truth must be found in infinite Mind, we have a standard by
which to judge all things, a basis from which to reason of Truth. We now turn
from appearances and “judge righteous judgment”; we decide what is true from
our knowledge of an omnipresent principle of Truth rather than from a personal
opinion or feeling. Whatever God is, is Truth. All Truth is eternal in
nature: true love can never change; true understanding cannot fail; true life
can never end. This is all true now. Conscious awareness of the Truth and the
opening of our hearts and minds to the acceptance of the fullness within our
own nature is our greatest need. All good, wisdom, strength, life, health,
love are ours now. Let us accept them. Begin each day with an
acknowledgment of omnipresent Good. Think of yourself as a son of God. Think
of your children, your friends, and all persons, not as they seem by
observation, but as they are in God. Think of them as that which is,
was, and ever shall be; as that which thinks and knows; as that which the
Expresser expresses perfectly. Know that what is true of God is true of you
and of them. From this standpoint you can intelligently master the problems
of life. From this standpoint it is right for you to accept for yourself all
thought and feelings of divine love, truth, knowledge, power, harmony. By
making this your daily practice you will partake of the free gift of eternal
life; you will be remembering God the Good. Through this consciousness the
healing of body and affairs takes place and Good is made manifest. Divine Science Statement of Being God is all, both invisible and visible. One Presence, One Mind, One Power is all. This one that is all is perfect life, perfect love,
and perfect substance. Man is the individualized expression of God and is
ever one with this perfect life, perfect love, and perfect substance. Statements of Truth God
is omnipresent Principle. “Principle
is the source and origin, that from which anything proceeds; the beginning, the first.” --Webster Man
is a spiritual Being, the image and likeness of God. Man
is the perfect manifestation of a perfect God. Man’s
consciousness is the activity of God-Mind. I
live now by the life that is omnipresent and full of power. In
all that I do this day, perfect Mind, ever active, Thinks
me, moves me, lives me as part of itself. I
am immortal Spirit, incorruptible, changeless, harmonious, strong In
thought and body, living, trusting, resting in the freedom And
fullness of perfect Life. Questions for Review and Discussion
Divine Science Its Principle and Practice
Copyright ã1957 by Divine Science Church and College Denver, Colorado Made
available here by the ministry of Rev.
Lawrence C. Terry, M.Msc., D.Min. P. O. Box
68324 Indianapolis,
IN 46268-0324 |
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