According to physical science, when the material eye sees rays of light coming from the sun, it is actually a visual effect, or illusion, caused by dust and some form of mist or haze in the air. With just the smallest suggestion of matter, separate, individual rays of sunlight seem to appear. Without the dust and mist, there are no individual rays; there is only light—the unlimited, unrestricted, unbroken presence of one source.
The same “ingredients” that cause the appearance of individual rays of light also make up the Adam—or false—man, entirely mortal, formed of the dust of the ground after a mist went up from the earth (see Genesis 2:6, 7). The real man made in the image and likeness of God, must be spiritual (see Genesis 1:27), for God is not made of dust and mist.
Mary Baker Eddy states in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, “Man is not God, but like a ray of light which comes from the sun, man, the outcome of God, reflects God” (p. 250). In the Glossary she further defines man as “the compound idea of infinite Spirit; the spiritual image and likeness of God; the full representation of Mind” (p. 591).
