Page:The Origin of Christian Science.djvu/61

Rh she is ignorant that this idea was written down by others. Her language is best explained on the ground that she got it in some way, in some written form, from these philosophers. I repeat, she made a great blunder in writing down that sentence and claiming that the idea came by divine revelation.

I may close this point of our discussion by remarking that whether or not Mrs. Eddy is right in supposing that God must not be considered in any sense as one of a series or class, that she herself evidently is one of a series or class, namely, the class of pagan philosophers and pantheists who cannot think of God, or the first principle of all, as being in any sense limited, of whom the first and greatest in intellectual acumen was Plotinus, and the last if not the least is Mary Baker G. Eddy.

Mrs. Eddy is set against anthropomorphism or the conception of God as having the form or nature of man. She thinks this error has done much harm. Now if anthropomorphism means that God has a body like man's and only this, then the doctrine would be bad. But no real thinker has taught that. Anthropomorphism, as the word suggests, is the doctrine that God has the likeness of man. It teaches that God is in some important respects like man. If God is like man in mind but not in body then we have an anthropomorphic conception of God. Since man is like God, being created in the image of God, as Mrs. Eddy