The Truth About Man
10/23/2013
….as many as perceive man's actual existence in and of his divine Principle, receive the
Truth of existence; and these have no other God, no other Mind, no other origin;
therefore, in time they lose their false sense of existence, and find their adoption with the
Father;
………man was never lost in Adam, since he is and ever was the image and likeness of
God, good. Miscellaneous Writings, page 182.
The following citations are from the King James Version of the Holy Bible
 Gen. 1:1-8, 26-28, 31
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form,
and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon
the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God
saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God
called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning
were the first day.
¶And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the
waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which
were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was
so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the
second day.
¶And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have
dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and
over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God
created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female
created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and
multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the
sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the
evening and the morning were the sixth day.
 Gen. 2:1-2
Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the
seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day
from all his work which he had made.
 Ps. 111:1-4, 7-8
Praise ye the Lord. I will praise the Lord with my whole heart, in the assembly of the
upright, and in the congregation. The works of the Lord are great, sought out of all them
that have pleasure therein. His work is honourable and glorious: and his righteousness
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endureth for ever. He hath made his wonderful works to be remembered: the Lord is
gracious and full of compassion.
The works of his hands are verity and judgment; all his commandments are sure. They
stand fast for ever and ever, and are done in truth and uprightness.
The following citations are from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by
Mary Baker Eddy.
 SH 583:20
Creator. Spirit; Mind; intelligence; the animating divine Principle of all that is real and
good; self-existent Life, Truth, and Love; that which is perfect and eternal; the opposite
of matter and evil, which have no Principle; God, who made all that was made and could
not create an atom or an element the opposite of Himself.
 SH 115:13-18
God: Divine Principle, Life, Truth, Love, Soul, Spirit, Mind.
Man: God's spiritual idea, individual, perfect , eternal.
Idea: An image in Mind; the immediate object of understanding. — Webster.
 SH 256:32-1
Infinite Mind is the creator, and creation is the infinite image or idea emanating from this
Mind.
 SH 502:29
There is but one creator and one creation. This creation consists of the unfolding of
spiritual ideas and their identities, which are embraced in the infinite Mind and forever
reflected. These ideas range from the infinitesimal to infinity, and the highest ideas are
the sons and daughters of God.
 SH 525:7-16
The following are some of the equivalents of the term man in different languages. In the
Saxon, mankind, a woman, any one; in the Welsh, that which rises up, — the primary
sense being image, form; in the Hebrew, image, similitude; in the Icelandic, mind. The
following translation is from the Icelandic: —
And God said, Let us make man after our mind and our likeness; and God shaped man
after His mind; after God's mind shaped He him; and He shaped them male and female.
 SH 517:8-10, 15-19
The ideal man corresponds to creation, to intelligence, and to Truth. The ideal woman
corresponds to Life and to Love.
The world believes in many persons; but if God is personal, there is but one person,
because there is but one God. His personality can only be reflected, not transmitted. God
has countless ideas, and they all have one Principle and parentage.
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 SH 516:4-5, 9-13, 19-21
The substance, Life, intelligence, Truth, and Love, which constitute Deity, are reflected
by His creation;
God fashions all things, after His own likeness. Life is reflected in existence, Truth in
truthfulness, God in goodness, which impart their own peace and permanence. Love,
redolent with unselfishness, bathes all in beauty and light.
Man, made in His likeness, possesses and reflects God's dominion over all the earth.
The following citations are from the King James Version of the Holy Bible
 Eccl. 7:29
Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out
many inventions.
The following citations are from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by
Mary Baker Eddy.
 SH 502:9-14
Spiritually followed, the book of Genesis is the history of the untrue image of God,
named a sinful mortal. This deflection of being, rightly viewed, serves to suggest the
proper reflection of God and the spiritual actuality of man, as given in the first chapter of
Genesis.
The following citations are from the King James Version of the Holy Bible
 Gen. 2:4-9
¶These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the
day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, And every plant of the field before
it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the Lord God had not
caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.
But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground. And
the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the
breath of life; and man became a living soul. ¶And the Lord God planted a garden
eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground
made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the
tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
 Gal. 3:3
Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?
 Romans 9:8
They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God:
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The following citations are from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by
Mary Baker Eddy.
 SH 523:7
The creations of matter arise from a mist or false claim, or from mystification, and not
from the firmament, or understanding, which God erects between the true and false. In
error everything comes from beneath, not from above. All is material myth, instead of the
reflection of Spirit.
 SH 584:28
Dust. Nothingness; the absence of substance, life, or intelligence.
 SH 579:15
Adam. Error; a falsity; the belief in "original sin," sickness, and death; evil; the opposite
of good, — of God and His creation; a curse; a belief in intelligent matter, finiteness, and
mortality; "dust to dust;" red sandstone; nothingness; the first god of mythology; not
God's man, who represents the one God and is His own image and likeness; the opposite
of Spirit and His creations; that which is not the image and likeness of good, but a
material belief, opposed to the one Mind, or Spirit; a so-called finite mind, producing
other minds, thus making "gods many and lords many" (I Corinthians viii. 5); a product
of nothing as the mimicry of something; an unreality as opposed to the great reality of
spiritual existence and creation; a so-called man, whose origin, substance, and mind are
found to be the antipode of God, or Spirit; an inverted image of Spirit; the image and
likeness of what God has not created, namely, matter, sin, sickness, and death; the
opposer of Truth, termed error; Life's counterfeit, which ultimates in death; the opposite
of Love, called hate; the usurper of Spirit's creation, called self-creative matter;
immortality's opposite, mortality; that of which wisdom saith, "Thou shalt surely die."
 SH 529:30
Adam, the synonym for error, stands for a belief of material mind. He begins his reign
over man somewhat mildly, but he increases in falsehood and his days become shorter. In
this development, the immortal, spiritual law of Truth is made manifest as forever
opposed to mortal, material sense.
 SH 580:21
The name Adam represents the false supposition that Life is not eternal, but has
beginning and end; that the infinite enters the finite, that intelligence passes into nonintelligence, and that Soul dwells in material sense; that immortal Mind results in matter,
and matter in mortal mind; that the one God and creator entered what He created, and
then disappeared in the atheism of matter.
 SH 306:32-24
The parent of all human discord was the Adam-dream, the deep sleep, in which
originated the delusion that life and intelligence proceeded from and passed into matter.
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This pantheistic error, or so-called serpent, insists still upon the opposite of Truth, saying,
"Ye shall be as gods;" that is, I will make error as real and eternal as Truth.
Evil still affirms itself to be mind, and declares that there is more than one intelligence or
God. It says: "There shall be lords and gods many. I declare that God makes evil minds
and evil spirits, and that I aid Him. Truth shall change sides and be unlike Spirit. I will
put spirit into what I call matter, and matter shall seem to have life as much as God,
Spirit, who is the only Life."
This error has proved itself to be error. Its life is found to be not Life, but only a transient,
false sense of an existence which ends in death. Error charges its lie to Truth and says:
"The Lord knows it. He has made man mortal and material, out of matter instead of
Spirit." Thus error partakes of its own nature and utters its own falsities. If we regard
matter as intelligent, and Mind as both good and evil, every sin or supposed material pain
and pleasure seems normal, a part of God's creation, and so weighs against our course
Spiritward.
 SH 531:15-4
If, in the beginning, man's body originated in non-intelligent dust, and mind was
afterwards put into body by the creator, why is not this divine order still maintained by
God in perpetuating the species? Who will say that minerals, vegetables, and animals
have a propagating property of their own? Who dares to say either that God is in matter
or that matter exists without God? Has man sought out other creative inventions, and so
changed the method of his Maker?
Which institutes Life, — matter or Mind? Does Life begin with Mind or with matter? Is
Life sustained by matter or by Spirit? Certainly not by both, since flesh wars against
Spirit and the corporeal senses can take no cognizance of Spirit. The mythologic theory
of material life at no point resembles the scientifically Christian record of man as created
by Mind in the image and likeness of God and having dominion over all the earth. Did
God at first create one man unaided, — that is, Adam, — but afterwards require the union
of the two sexes in order to create the rest of the human family? No! God makes and
governs all.
 SH 345:21-5
Anybody, who is able to perceive the incongruity between God's idea and poor humanity,
ought to be able to discern the distinction (made by Christian Science) between God's
man, made in His image, and the sinning race of Adam.
The apostle says: "For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he
deceiveth himself." This thought of human, material nothingness, which Science
inculcates, enrages the carnal mind and is the main cause of the carnal mind's
antagonism.
It is not the purpose of Christian Science to "educate the idea of God, or treat it for
disease," as is alleged by one critic. I regret that such criticism confounds man with
Adam. When man is spoken of as made in God's image, it is not sinful and sickly mortal
man who is referred to, but the ideal man, reflecting God's likeness.
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 SH 282:28
Whatever indicates the fall of man or the opposite of God or God's absence, is the Adamdream, which is neither Mind nor man, for it is not begotten of the Father. The rule of
inversion infers from error its opposite, Truth; but Truth is the light which dispels error.
As mortals begin to understand Spirit, they give up the belief that there is any true
existence apart from God.
 SH 214:9
Adam, represented in the Scriptures as formed from dust, is an object-lesson for the
human mind. The material senses, like Adam, originate in matter and return to dust, —
are proved non-intelligent. They go out as they came in, for they are still the error, not the
truth of being. When it is learned that the spiritual sense, and not the material, conveys
the impressions of Mind to man, then being will be understood and found to be
harmonious.
 SH 557:16
When the mist of mortal mind evaporates, the curse will be removed which says to
woman, "In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children." Divine Science rolls back the clouds
of error with the light of Truth, and lifts the curtain on man as never born and as never
dying, but as coexistent with his creator.
 SH 475:5-22
Question. — What is man?
Answer. — Man is not matter; he is not made up of brain, blood, bones, and other
material elements. The Scriptures inform us that man is made in the image and likeness
of God. Matter is not that likeness. The likeness of Spirit cannot be so unlike Spirit. Man
is spiritual and perfect; and because he is spiritual and perfect, he must be so understood
in Christian Science. Man is idea, the image, of Love; he is not physique. He is the
compound idea of God, including all right ideas; the generic term for all that reflects
God's image and likeness; the conscious identity of being as found in Science, in which
man is the reflection of God, or Mind, and therefore is eternal; that which has no separate
mind from God; that which has not a single quality underived from Deity; that which
possesses no life, intelligence, nor creative power of his own, but reflects spiritually all
that belongs to his Maker.
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Hymn 267
Our God is All-in-all,
His children cannot fear;
See baseless evil fall,
And know that God is here.
Our God is All; in space
No subtle error creeps;
We see Truth's glowing face,
And Love that never sleeps.
We see creative Mind,
The Principle, the Life;
And Soul and substance find,
But never discord, strife.
O, Perfect and Divine,
We hear Thy loving call,
And seek no earthly shrine
But crown Thee Lord of all.
Hymn 51
Eternal Mind the Potter is,
And thought th' eternal clay:
The hand that fashions is divine,
His works pass not away.
Man is the noblest work of God,
His beauty, power and grace,
Immortal; perfect as his Mind
Reflected face to face.
God could not make imperfect man
His model infinite;
Unhallowed thought He could not plan,
Love's work and Love must fit.
Life, Truth and Love the pattern make,
Christ is the perfect heir;
The clouds of sense roll back, and show
The form divinely fair.
God's will is done; His kingdom come;
The Potter's work is plain.
The longing to be good and true
Has brought the light again.
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And man does stand as God's own child,
The image of His love.
Let gladness ring from every tongue,
And heaven and earth approve.
Hymn 144
In atmosphere of Love divine,
We live, and move, and breathe;
Though mortal eyes may see it not,
'Tis sense that would deceive.
The mortal sense we must destroy,
If we would bring to light
The wonders of eternal Mind,
Where sense is lost in sight.
For God, immortal Principle,
Is with us everywhere;
He holds us perfect in His love,
And we His image bear.
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