There are few things more talked about these days than "'The Contusion of Creeds." a fact which is no less sincerely deplored by those who are given to prayer than it is flippantly ridiculed by those who are given to destructive criticism. Christian believers have all and always affirmed that the source of all truth and good is one nevertheless oneness of faith and devotion has ever been conspicuously absent from denominational religious teachings, and division or strife which has ofttimes led to sanguinary conflict has been one of the destructive features of Christian history, in the minds of many intelligent people this confusion in the realm of religious belief begets a sense of its unprofitableness. They have reached the conclusion that since the most earnest and sincere religionists are at such variance as to what is true and right, it is not worth while to give time and attention to either creeds or churches. They have found that people of equal sincerity, thoughtfulness, and religious earnestness entertain altogether different views respecting the interpretation of the Scriptures, and not feeling competent to settle for themselves questions concerning which renowned authorities disagree, they have given up the consideration of doctrinal teachings, take no part in collective religious activity, and rely wholly on clean, upright living as the sufficient basis of their hope for the future. While kindly disposed toward all unselfish efforts to better the human situation, they frankly classify themselves as incapable of discerning spiritual things, or as well-meaning agnostics.
This feeling that where there is so much of divergence of belief there can be nothing of demonstrable certainty or value, is very general, and the determining influence of this estimate of the situation is certainly very great in the world at large. Meantime there stands Paul's identification of "one Lord" with "one faith," and the naturalness and logical inevitableness of this association and sequence of terms comes home to one the moment he begins to think about the matter. No one can look out upon a starlit sky without recognizing that He who fashions and governs the universe of being is indeed infinite and that His integrity of nature cannot reasonably be questioned. Such a being could not harbor contradiction of thought or expression. His law must be perfect and there can be none other. To know Him therefore must be "eternal life" as Jesus said. To apprehend His law and be willingly and lovingly obedient thereto must constitute true religion or faith which is therefore necessarily "one."
Further, the impartiality of God inheres in His integrity, and the radiance of His revelation can but flood all the universe all the time, and this light illumines in some degree, as John has affirmed, "every man that cometh into the world." Whatever of moral or spiritual perception, whatever of unselfish aspiration and brotherly love there may be found in the heart and life of any man or any people, at any period of human history, must therefore be an expression of a degree of responsiveness to the divine appeal and visitation, a welcome, in so far, to him who said, "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me." Speaking of this matter with reference to untutored Indians, Mrs. Eddy has said: "The Indians caught some glimpses of the underlying reality, when they called a certain beautiful lake 'the smile of the Great Spirit'" (Science and Health, p.477); while of a Greek philosopher who, living four hundred years before Christ, was altogether uninfluenced by Christian teaching, she says: "Because he understood the superiority and immortality of good, Socrates feared not the hemlock poison. Even the faith of his philosophy spurned physical timidity. Having sought man's spiritual state, he recognized the immortality of man" (Science and Health, p.215). We are thus led to see in Christian Science that unity of faith includes those quickening and uplifting glimpses of truth and of good which in all times and among all nations have lifted individuals to the level of seers in their relation to the prevailing thought of their times, and that all the good, the beautiful, and the true which has been perceived and cherished by humanity in the ages past is traceable to the brooding presence of that "Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning."
