FALSE theology presents an erroneous dogma concerning God's self-sufficiency, teaching that God can find complete satisfaction in Himself, apart from man. According to the Adamic theory of creation, until some six thousand years ago God existed without man. This doctrine represents man as a mere afterthought of the creator,—an experimental addition to God's earlier creation, who, soon after he was created, fell into error and began to cause the creator trouble. Naturally enough, one who accepts this theory may find himself wondering why he exists, what he is good for, and whether or not he has any place to fill. Such an individual may easily take a condemnatory attitude towards himself and others, and entertain pessimistic views concerning the prospects of the entire race.
Christian Science makes clear the fallacy of this theory, and reveals the fact that man, as created by God. is absolutely essential to God. It achieves this happy and satisfying result by revealing God as the one and only Mind and cause, and man and the universe as the divine effect, which forever expresses God, divine Mind.
Mind is that which knows. Admittedly, the divine Mind is perfect, and consequently must be unlimited or infinite; for any limitation in divine Mind would indicate lack of intelligence, or imperfection. The infinitude of the divine Mind renders impossible the existence of other minds; and thus God is seen to be the only Mind,—the original all-knowing One. Since divine Mind is perfect and complete, this Mind must know every good idea which can be conceived by unlimited intelligence. Since God is "the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever," it follows that God always has known and always will know every good thought or idea. Everything that enters into God's perfect creation, every one of His ideas, always has existed and always will exist. This disposes of the commonly accepted, but illogical and impossible definition of creation as the bringing into existence of something which previously did not exist. God is creator, in the sense that He is the only cause which produces, sustains, and governs the only effect; and the entire effect is coexistent with its cause and, like its cause, is eternal. God could no more dispense for a moment with one of His perfect ideas, than He could cease to be. Christ Jesus drove home this point when he declared to his disciples, "There shall not an hair of your head perish."
