When Mary Baker Eddy was twelve, the theological belief of predestination was prevalent in churches in the United States. This Calvinistic belief of "unconditional election" provided that some were "saved" and others were doomed to endless separation from God. This troubled the young Mary, who felt she could not subscribe to such a doctrine. She tells of this experience in her autobiographical work, Retrospection and Introspection. See Ret., pp. 13-15.
She wished to join the church of her parents but did not want to agree to this doctrine. She says, "So perturbed was I by the thoughts aroused by this erroneous doctrine, that the family doctor was summoned, and pronounced me stricken with fever." Her mother urged her to rely on God's love and to go to God in prayer. She did pray and the fever was healed. She says, "The physician marvelled; and the 'horrible decree' of predestination—as John Calvin rightly called his own tenet—forever lost its power over me." Eventually the pastor accepted her into membership— as she says, "my protest along with me."
What a wicked belief—the preordination of some individuals to everlasting happiness and others to endless misery! What we might call "biological Calvinism" is widespread in thought today. Looking to genes as the determiner of a good or evil inheritance can be seen as a modern-day belief in predestination. But God is the only true creator. He gives identity. He outlines His own ideas, giving each one purpose. And He confers good alone. Moreover, God, who is Spirit, creates not material offspring but purely spiritual offspring, who express His nature.
