Every thoughtful student of Christian Science must have been impressed by the emphasis it lays upon the attainment of a concept of God which brings Him into redemptive relation with all our determinations and doings. He sees that to begin to be a Christian Scientist is to begin to think of God all the while; it is to shape our course and conduct, every hour and moment, by remembrance of Him.
Every Christian Scientist speedily learns that habitual right thought of God is essential to his success and peace, that this companionship is the sum and substance of true being; and his amazement grows apace that in all the centuries the great body of those who have reverenced the Deity have been content to entertain a sense of His nature and doings which is altogether illogical and inconsistent. As one reads the Scripture, he finds that among the ancient worthies Job was well-nigh unique in the radical and daring way in which he questioned many of the pervading beliefs about God, in his sturdy wrestling over the subject with his own educated bias and his triad of rebuking friends. Thus too the perusal of Christian theology must surprise every awakened reader that such confused and conflicting thoughts of the Supreme Being should have been transmitted, practically unchallenged, from one generation of intelligent people to another.
It is to be seen, therefore, that in focusing the Christian world's attention upon this question of the correctness of its concept of God, the statement of Christian Science is no less indifferent to conventional teaching than it is considerate for a vital need. To illustrate: the moment one begins to meditate upon the declaration of Christian Science that God is infinite Truth, he begins to see that this is not only a wholly necessary concept of the accredited source of all wisdom, but that it supplies the basis for a satisfying philosophy of the life which Christ Jesus presented as ideal. The anthropomorphic sense of Deity has always given prominence to personality, hence the teaching of the Master respecting his unity with God, as set forth in the seventeenth chapter of St. John, at once precipitates the difficulty of seeing how two personalities can be one. Jesus declared that God and His Son, spiritual man, are not only at-one, in harmony, but that there is an interblend of nature. Note his words: "All mine are thine, and thine are mine." "That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us." "I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one."
