CHRISTIAN SCIENCE teaches that man is the infinite idea which expresses the nature and activity of infinite Mind. Words, human language, are spoken or written symbols used to express ideas. Their meaning is dependent upon the thought of the one using them, and upon the thought of the one to whom they are spoken or by whom they are read. If both the speaker and the hearer have the same understanding of the thought which the words are intended to express, they are in agreement; if each knows the truth of which the words are the expression, there is no difference of opinion between them. Thus a person accustomed to think of home as a large house, completely equipped with every modern convenience, and the abiding-place of a happy family, has a different thought when using or hearing the word than does one who knows home only as a shack, with no conveniences, and housing a poverty stricken and unhappy family.
The word God has had a different meaning to people at various periods in the history of the human race. That meaning has been dependent upon the mental state of the individual or of the period. To some the word has stood for an idea of a semimystical nature; to others it has expressed the idea of an undefined, fear-inspiring being, located in some distant place, who exerts a mysterious influence over the affairs of the earth and mankind; to others it means a loving father of greatly magnified human capacities. Throughout the history of the human race the almost universal concept of God has been that of a super-man, a godlike man. Such was the idea of God held by the ancient Hebrews at the time when Moses gained a clearer spiritual concept of Deity and sought to establish it in the thought of his people.
In the lapse of the centuries between the time of Moses and the time of Jesus, the prevailing Hebraic idea of God was that of a magnified human ruler, a mighty tribal chief or king, jealous of the success of any but his few chosen people, vengeful, destructive, a war god; and, imbued with the Christ-spirit, the Master spent his life in the endeavor to lift the thought of the people out of this limited, corporeal concept of the Deity. The clearer spiritual sense of God gained by the disciples, gradually became clouded after the crucifixion, and Christendom drifted back to the old thought of God as a manlike deity, a great king who is given to wrath, jealousy, repentance, and vengeance, who afflicts His creature, man, in order to force him to be better. There have been some who maintained that God is determined utterly to destroy man, on the supposition that he is not worth saving.
