Choose the unlimited

Laurance Doyle | from The Christian Science Journal

Creationism or evolution? Let’s not accept that man is material, because God’s creation is spiritual and unlimited.

As a natural scientist who is also a Christian Scientist, I’m sometimes asked if I believe in creation or evolution. By the term creation, the questioner is generally referring to the idea that man was made of dust by the Lord God of the Bible about 6,000 years ago. By the term evolution, the questioner is usually referring to Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, first introduced in his book The Origin of Species, published in 1859. Darwin proposed that man mutated through lower forms to his present material structure through a process called “natural selection”—where the fittest characteristics survive.

The hidden assumption in both cases is that man is material. So, if one starts with such a limited premise, one is sure to arrive at an equally limited conclusion—limitation A (material creation) or limitation B (material evolution). But in Christian Science we learn that man is spiritual, being created by God, infinite Mind, all the time, in an ongoing process. As Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer of Christian Science wrote:“Creation is ever appearing, and must ever continue to appear from the nature of its inexhaustible source” (Science and Health, p. 507). Thus God’s creation is not an historic event, but the action of eternal, infinite Mind “knowing” the universe, including man as described in the first chapter of Genesis. Since we are like God, created as God’s image and likeness, we need to look to God in order to know ourselves. God is Spirit, so, as Spirit’s image, we must be wholly spiritual. God is Mind, so we must be intelligent. God is one, so we must be unique. God is infinite, so we must be unlimited.

God is infinite, so we must be unlimited.

Many religious thinkers believe that the theory of evolution has gone too far. But as Christian Scientists, seeing the march of thought Spiritward, we might consider that evolution, like many sciences at this point, has just not gone far enough. Mrs. Eddy noted, “Evolution describes the gradations of human belief, but it does not acknowledge the method of divine Mind, nor see that material methods are impossible in divine Science and that all Science is of God, not of man” (Science and Health, p. 551).

So is there a law of natural selection in Christian Science? Yes. As Mrs. Eddy explained: “Man outlives finite mortal definitions of himself, according to a law of ‘the survival of the fittest.’ Man is the eternal idea of his divine Principle, or Father” (No and Yes, p. 25). Hence, to me the law of spiritually natural selection means that the spiritual, immortal man lasts, has infinite life, while the material, mortal concept of man does not.

Spiritual creation includes continuous life.

Spiritual creation includes continuous life because we—and all of creation—are “ever appearing,” experiencing and being the eternal, ongoing expression of infinite Mind. A mortal concept of ourselves cannot glimpse this eternal Life because that limited concept is, by definition, finite. The material, restricted concept of man cannot stand up to the unlimited idea of God’s creation because mortality does not, and cannot, last.

Mary Baker Eddy used the terms creation and evolution interchangeably, because, in a sense, they have an identical meaning in the teachings of Christian Science. She wrote: “Creation, evolution, or manifestation,—being in and of Spirit, Mind, and all that really is,—must be spiritual and mental. This is Science, and is susceptible of proof” (Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, p. 27).

As with the question of our origin, so with all questions we face in daily life, we can be guided to reject a limited sense of choice often presented to us by mortal thought, whether choices of career, companionship, healing, time, finances, or any other aspect of limitation or duality. We can reject limitation altogether and see that there is but one choice—and God has already made it for us. We are to be His unlimited reflection right now. So, along with Joshua in the Bible, we can choose “this day whom [we] will serve … we will serve the Lord.” And that, really, is the only choice we have to make.

Laurence Doyle lives in Mountain View, California, United States.