Not until Mary Baker Eddy gave us her book "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" could the world understand the statement in the fourteenth verse of the third chapter of Exodus: "And God said unto Moses, I am that I am." Indeed, the world had looked upon that declaration as being mysterious, and as only another example of the exclusiveness of the "unknown God." Men took it to mean, "I am the unknowable, and no man has the right to attempt to understand me." Christian Science, however, makes it clear that that declaration was not meant to mystify or confuse or discourage, but to define and clarify and inspire. It explains that "I am that I am" means that God is in very deed and essence without variableness or "shadow of turning;" that which is unchanging; that which is conscious of being infinitely itself; that which is conscious of nothing but its own allness. Such a definition could have been given only by inspiration, for this fact of the absolute allness of God cannot be arrived at through the human senses; indeed, it is a fact that is violently resisted by the senses and by the human intellect.
"I AM THAT I AM" is only one English rendering of the original Hebrew text. Other phases of the allness of God are suggested by certain equally legitimate renderings. For example, "I AM BECAUSE I AM" reminds us that not only is God that which He is,—Life, Truth, Love, Spirit, the creator of the universe, the Maker of man, the omnipotent, ever present Mind, divine Principle,—but also that there is a reason for His existing, namely, the excellent reason that He is Life itself. Similarly, the rendering "I AM WHO I AM" teaches the absolute self-containment, self-government, and self-consciousness of God who cannot be turned into a limited theory of deity to suit each creed or party. ''I WILL BE THAT I WILL BE" is the declaration of the fact that the infinite Mind is infinitely unfolding and is inexorable, divine Principle, which outlines but cannot be outlined. Again, the simple "I will be" thunders forth the eternal mandate of Truth, the "I am All. A knowledge of aught beside Myself is impossible," as we find it expressed by Mary Baker Eddy on page 18 of "Unity of Good ."
Now this postulate of the consciousness of His allness which must be the essential nature of God, has been lost to the sects. Jesus' command, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect," implied that man is perfect, and that there is not the slightest virtue in any sort of imperfection. He showed men how to be perfect when he declared, "I and my Father are one," for it is obvious that if a man claims oneness with and inseparability from the Father, the I am—the only Mind there can be if it is true that God is infinite—he is understanding that man is perfect instead of clinging to the educated belief that he is a miserable sinner. Christianity to-day has forgotten that it is still an imperative Christian duty, and not presumption, to be perfect and to heal the sick as Jesus did. Indeed, so blinded and hopeless, so utterly confused is the average Christian to-day that though he believes that God makes him sick in order to chasten him he at the same time believes that a doctor has the power and the right to annul God's just and wise decree. Like Asa he seeks not God but the physicians.
