The Waterbury Democrat., 1931-10-31

,,Adau, he Ithe Lord Godl said.
 cursed is the ground for thy sake; lin sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and .tllistles shall it bring forth to thee: in the sweat of thy face
 shall thou raturn e
 shalt thou eat bread, till thou re-
 turn unto the ground; for out of
 1t vast thou taken; for dust thou
 art, and unto dust shalt thou re- turn"
 Now there must be something
 wrong somewhere. What do you
 suppose has become of the domin- l ion, the power, the goodness, the God endowed man only a few
 cerses back, before the mist arose? ? Here we have clearly two distinct
 and opposing statements about
 man. One is that man Is good,
 pure, holy, and spiritual, has dominion over everything, is creat- ed of God, and is like God. The l other is that he is 8 helpless, de- fenseless, powerless creature, made of plain everyday dust from no particular pattern whatever. The only thing in the Bible that separ-
 ates these two differing accounts of mans creation is the mist"
 No mention is made of the man
 created in the image and likeness
 of God as having ssnned and fallen,
 or as having been changed in any
 way. There comes the mist, and
 then comes the account of the
 creation of man as about the most
 helpless and miserable creature one
 could imagine.
 You will remember that we
 started out to ascertain what is
 the true nature of God. Now comes
 the question: Which one of these | in the Bible as having ibeen created
 by God, is like God? Both cannot be; that is certain. If We can de- termine which one of these two men Is like God, we can determine what God Is like. The Bible from beginning to end is replete with answers to this query. Isaiah, for instance, having knowledge, evil l dently, of this account of creation which depicts man as made from dust and as having had the breath of life breathed into his nostrils,
 writes: Cease ye from man, whose breath Is in his nostrils; for where in Is he to be accounted of?" Job, | commenting on this same man, this Adam man, this man of the dust of the ground, says: Man that is
 born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble. He cometh l forth like a flower, and Is cut l down: he fieeth also as a shadow,
 and continueth not. For there
 Is hope of tree, if it be cut down, that 1t will sprout again, and that | I~~ hax xxyflI n ] cease. But man dieth, and i wasteth away" Jesus said, "The flesh [that is, the material man] proflteth nothing" We are not, then, left long in doubt as to what l the writers in the Bible think about this dust man,-this man of ,I flesh and blood and bones,-this I Adam man.
 Of the man described in the first
 chapter of Genesis, made in the image and likeness of God and having dominion over all the earth, I the Psalmist wrote: For thou hast Il made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou madest
 him to have dominion over the
 works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet" Some
 difference here between the man
 made in the image and likeness of God and the man made of the dust
 of the ground, who Is depicted as
 a miserable, groveling, helpless creaturei If we are to put any 4 are bound to the conclusion that Ithis man of flesh and blood and bones, this Adam man, is not the man of Gods creating, and that,
 therefore, mortal, material man does not represent God. We are hound to the further conslusion I that the man spoken of in the first I chapter of Genesis, who is depicted as good and as having dominion
 over all the earth, is like God. So,
 if we have done nothing else from
 this course of reasoning. we have
 found that God is in no wise
 similar to that which you and I 1, have been wont to call material
 man. And thus, by the process of
 elimination, we have abolished completely any sense of God as a humanly circumscribed personal ity.
 Now. to face about in our req
 soning: Jesus described God as Spirit, which of course, has nothing T termed matter of the physical.
 Spirit signifies infinite, filling all
 space, ever present, everywhere. here and now. Jesus also referred
 to God as good; not as good God,
 but as good itself. Goodness is what? Mental, of course. Good ness is not and never can be a
 quality of matter. It must be mental. St Paul refers, on several , occasions, to the mind of the Lord," or the mind -. which was also in Chris Jesus," pointing
 out that the amimating Principle , or God of Jesus the Christ was , Mind, and that this Mind is the , true God. St John tells us that r God is Love. To be exact, St John r says: Every one that loveth is [ born of God, and knoweth God. , He that loveth not knoweth not l God; for God is love-" What is l love? It is mental, is 1t not? It is 1 something expressed in thought. v | no room for doubt as to what God . Is and His exact nature.
 , Now, there is no equivocation v whatever about Jesus statement |, lthat God is Spirit. No one could i misunderstood that. There is no V question whatever about St Johns g statement that God is Love. No g one would deny that love is some- |, thing expressed in thought, word, e and deed. If, therefore, God is
 something expressed in the con a sciousness of man, it is not clear I that the God of man must also be . he Mind of man? And if this con g clusion is a logical one then is it : not clear that man, the image and