Page:The Origin of Christian Science.djvu/67

Rh process, and the knowledge of God which is always immediate or intuitive, or is simply consciousness. In the quotation from Spinoza, just given, in which he says “intellect” does not appertain to God's nature, he is making this very point. He, too, holds that God's knowledge is always immediate or intuitive knowledge or consciousness. The foundation for this strange speculation—and one could hardly discover a finer specimen of speculation is found in the statement of Plotinus, that there arises from or pertains to the “good” “an intellect not such as we possess.”

I am here anticipating the discussion of Mrs. Eddy's psychology and need not now trace the comparison further. In dismissing the matter now I wish to note for the benefit of the reader that the way is being prepared by means of this kind of psychology for the teaching of the Neoplatonists, Spinoza and Mrs. Eddy, that God has no knowledge of deformity, discord or evil.

Now since Mrs. Eddy denies so much knowledge to God we ask, why did she not deny all knowledge to him? Since she rejects an anthropomorphic God, how is it that she permits her god to have any kind of knowledge, since knowledge is a quality of human beings? Mrs. Eddy should have followed the Neoplatonists consistently to the end. Plotinus denies all knowledge to the one or the good. For know e l e dge requires the act of discrimination or differentiation and in all