The unity and also the eternal distinctness of God and man are basic teachings of Christian Science. Nothing exists but God and man, Mind and its compound idea, or creation. Mind and idea, God and His image, are not two beings, but constitute one infinite cause with its eternal, changeless, inseparable effect.
It is fundamental that God, good, would have to create His own image and likeness, as the Bible reveals in the first chapter of Genesis. God cannot and does not create qualities unlike Himself, but always expresses His own presence in omnipresent goodness. Hence man and the universe are made of goodness.
The unity of God and His divine quality goodness is a fact beyond cavil. Man, as revealed in Christian Science, is the expression of Mind, God. Man is coexistent and coeternal with Mind. This unity of God and man was referred to by Jesus when he said (John 10:30), "I and my Father are one." It is the knowledge of this unity of God and man which uncovers as illusion the belief that man can be material. Man, the expression of Mind, or Spirit, is and must be divinely mental, wholly spiritual, always safe and well. What mortals have believed man to be is a finite counterfeit or false sense of man, an illusion, quite contrary to the facts of man made in God's image and likeness which Jesus understood and brought to human apprehension, thereby healing sickness and sin.
