In the first three centuries of Christian history the subject of the origin of matter was a controversial, theological question. Some Christian sects contended that matter was basically evil and that God did not make it. One sect, the Gnostic Docetae, or "Seemists," declared that the physical body of Christ Jesus was only a seeming, for he was too pure to be associated with matter, which was evil. Dropping into the fallacy of trying to explain the origin of matter and evil and failing to do so, some of these sects came to the conclusion that there were two gods, a God of good and a god of evil, the latter the creator of matter. After years of bitter controversy the Gnostics were excluded from the Church, and one of the first dogmas adopted by the early Fathers was the doctrine that God is the creator of both matter and Spirit.
This doctrine concerning the subject of matter's origin was challenged by Mary Baker Eddy in 1866 with her discovery of Christian Science. At that time she glimpsed that since Spirit, or God, is All, matter, the opposite of Spirit, is unreal, the subjective state of the carnal, or mortal, mind. Soon she bravely declared to a scornful world that matter is indeed evil and that the mortal senses which cognize it are supposititious, the counterfeits of real consciousness. Hence the theology she provided for her Church through revelation is strong in its inclusion of the denial of matter as substantial or even existent.
Mrs. Eddy says in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: "Matter is neither a thing nor a person, but merely the objective supposition of Spirit's opposite. The five material senses testify to truth and error as united in a mind both good and evil. Their false evidence will finally yield to Truth,—to the recognition of Spirit and of the spiritual creation." Science and Health, p. 287;
