God and the Universe (Extract)
Charles W. J. Tennant, C.S.B.
Member of the Board of Lectureship of The Mother Church,
The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts
Mr. Charles W. J. Tennant, C.S.B., delivered a lecture last evening in the Church Edifice, Lower Baggot street, Dublin, before a large and attentive audience.
Mr. Tennant's lecture was as follows: — There are many conceptions of God, which vary according to the views of the individuals who entertain them, but there can be only one right conception of God. On Page 27 of her book, Unity of Good, Mary Baker Eddy writes: — "God is egoistic, knowing only His own all-presence, all-knowledge, all-power." How are we to find out the true conception of God? The Bible gives us this information. Although the Bible contains varying views of God, the right conception of Him as infinite Spirit runs through the whole book from Genesis to Revelation. We are told that God spake and it was done — in other words, creation appeared. This reveals God as Mind unfolding His ideas. In revealing His concept of man, He says: "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness . . . So God created man in his own image . . . male and female created he them." Christian Science, therefore, teaches that God is Father-Mother, for throughout the universe there is a law that like produces like.
This enables us to start with a right conception of God and the universe as infinite, divine Mind and its infinite ideas. Webster's dictionary defines "idea" as "an image in Mind; the immediate object of understanding." Since God is Mind and God is infinite, Mind must be infinite. Therefore there can be only one Mind. Creation must be what God knows, and what He knows must be eternal, immortal, infinite, immutable, divine, spiritual. John tells us: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." On page 465 of the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, she defines God as follows: "God is incorporeal, divine, supreme, infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love." Let us consider the statement that God is incorporeal. Incorporeal means without a physical body. There is therefore no physical personality about God. This agrees with the Biblical statement that God is omnipresent. No corporeality could be omnipresent. What do we mean by omnipresence? It cannot mean anything physical or anything cognized by the physical senses. Omnipresence must be a divinely mental condition. For example, take the principle of mathematics. This principle has always existed, even before mathematical facts were discerned by mortals; and its ideas have always existed. The simple fact that two and two are four has always existed. It does not depend upon time, space, or anything that is physical. It is a metaphysical fact, without beginning or end. It cannot be destroyed, misplaced, or displaced. There is no place where it does not exist. This simple fact is an illustration of omnipresence, the presence of that which is true; it is an idea of omniscience, the knowledge of that which is true; and it expresses omnipotence, the fact of being true.
[Delivered Mar. 13, 1941, in First Church of Christ, Scientist, Dublin, Ireland, and published in The Irish Times, Mar. 14, 1941. The title of this lecture comes from this report's sub-headline; none was given with the lecture or in the advertisement published in the previous day's newspaper.]