Under the marginal heading "The great question," on page 308 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mrs. Eddy, in ringing tones, arouses humanity to the need of recognizing man's true status and his relationship to God. Commencing on page 307 she writes: "Above error's awful din, blackness, and chaos, the voice of Truth still calls: 'Adam, where art thou? Consciousness, where art thou? Art thou dwelling in the belief that mind is in matter, and that evil is mind, or art thou in the living faith that there is and can be but one God, and keeping His commandment?'" Sooner or later each individual is confronted with this momentous question: "Consciousness, where art thou?"
The perversion of truth in belief has stultified the teachings of the Scriptures, claiming through the depravity of the physical senses the power of reversing intelligent thinking and acting, and, in consequence, has built up instead a theory of creation in direct contradiction to the declaration of the Scriptures, that God created all that was made, including man in His image and likeness. The outcome is a personal God, who is a respecter of persons, cognizant of both good and evil. This erroneous premise naturally ultimates in equally false conclusions, with chaos and discord, in many minds, all vested as expressed in matter, representing variant degrees of intelligence.
The inspired writer of the first chapter of Genesis commences his statement of fact thus: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth," and later on in the record he declares, "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him," and further indicates man's dominion over all the earth. The fact here stated is, that God, or Mind, the one consciousness or intelligence of creation, created all that was made, and this creation, including man in His image, reflects Him; moreover, God's complete work is characterized as "very good." The lesson, therefore, to be learned by humanity is the practical method of separating all concepts based upon wrong premise, from the immutable fact of God, good, as the source of all real existence. So perceiving what dominion really is, mortals begin through self-analysis to find the true status of man, with the great question: "Adam, where art thou? Consciousness, where art thou?"
