CHAPTER IV
DOES GOD HAVE A BODY, AND COULD HE BECOME A MAN?
Was Jesus God or a good man only?
Can modern psychology any longer believe in the Deity of Jesus?
Where does Jesus belong in the religious, social, and thought world?
1. Introductory statement
Thus far our discussion of God has been largely in relation to physics. At last, however, we are ready to consider Him on a higher plane.
Our knowledge of both God and man is incomplete until we see their oneness in Jesus and in the kingdom which Jesus proclaimed. In the life of Jesus, God and man are viewed from a higher spiritual level. The world lies broken into fragments until these fragments become united in the Christ type of life. Then the body, the human mind, God, and the whole material universe coordinate to make one beautiful whole.
Starting with the Scriptural idea that all things proceed from Wisdom, or God, then strictly speaking, God is the only person in the universe who has a body of His own. All other spirits live in His bodies. This is necessarily so if all the way from its simplest elements to its most highly organized forms, nature is but the expression of the divine Will. As we have already shown, the human body is but a part of universal nature,—the finest part, the blossom. Therefore, what we call the human organism is primarily God's. Not only is it the very finest bit of His workmanship, but it is His to use, unless His child, the man soul, robs Him of His own. In these highly specialized parts of nature God has not merely one, but billions of bodies,—all the bodies there are. The Infinite Mind would find one such body utterly inadequate. With but one bodily form He would be incomparably worse off than an organist with but one finger. If God could come to articulate speech and deed through but one physical instrument, He and all His family might well despair. If as the Scriptures teach, however, each and every physical body is His very own, in which and through which He may live, then every condition is provided for a God humanly personal and infinitely satisfying. He may be as local and personal as our parents or neighbors. Though greater than all, He is yet in all and through all,