The mythology of ancient Rome and Greece seems far removed from the religion of enlightened people of today, but are we sure that it is entirely foreign to our accepted modes of thinking? Mythology identified concepts and qualities as men-made gods which were supposed to embody or control human experience; and men were thought to be influenced by these gods, which they had created in their own thought and then feared or revered. We may well ask ourselves if we are attributing power or reality to false concepts of God and of His manifestation, man. If we have progressed sufficiently in our thinking to acknowledge that God is Spirit and to agree with the statement in the first Biblical account of creation that "God created man in his own image" (Gen. 1:27), we cannot think of man as a physical personality through which deific qualities may or may not be expressed.
In the second account of creation, taken from a different document and beginning in the second chapter of Genesis, man is represented as made from the dust of the ground; and a spurious serpent is credited with talking and saying of him (Gen.3:5), "Ye shall be as gods." On page 319 of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." Mary Baker Eddy says. "The varied doctrines and theories which presuppose life and intelligence e to exist in matter are so many ancient and modern mythologies." The suggestion that matter becomes man, expressing mind and thereby giving limits to Mind, can result only in discord.
To Mrs. Eddy there was revealed through her intensive study of the Bible a clear understanding of the nature of God. Throughout her writings she uses seven synonyms for God—Principle, Mind, Soul, Spirit, Life, Truth, Love—terms which indicate the essential boundlessness and perfection of Deity. She frequently explains that man, in the likeness of God, includes by reflection the nature and qualities of God, and nothing else. As we study the synonyms for God it becomes clear that matter is not included in the allness of Spirit, that Mind cannot be put within material limits, and that therefore the divine creation is composed of spiritual ideas rather than of physical forms. These truths of God and man, when understood and put into practice, become a law of annihilation to material, mythological theories and so-called laws.
