Mankind generally is growing out of anthropomorphism—that is, ascribing human form and characteristics to God. While God has been represented in the art of the past as a man with a beard, this concept is not widely tenable for modern people. God, Christian Science shows, is Principle, Truth, Soul. Principle is omnipresent divine Being and impartial Love, not a limited person. While we usually don't think of God as humanlike, with limbs and so forth, a personal, corporeal sense of man still seems to be firmly entrenched in mankind's thinking. Material personality includes the whole cluster of mortal attributes that counterfeit the spiritual ideas comprising the real man.
We take a giant step in spiritual development as we come to admit that man, Principle's expression, is not a personal, corporeal being but God's impersonal idea. And this means practical growth. Mrs. Eddy prompts us, "Remember, it is personality, and the sense of personality in God or in man, that limits man."Miscellaneous Writings, p. 282; When we understand the illusiveness of mortal personalities, the way opens for the color and definiteness of spiritual individuality to shine out.
A merely personal, corporeal sense of man is the source of physical or mental ill health, of short funds, purposelessness, or whatever. The Science of Christ, the background of Christ Jesus' healings, teaches how to put aside personal and corporeal concepts. This improves interpersonal contacts. When the false sense of man influences us less, we're freer to express ideal qualities flowing from God and to see them in others.
