From the grids that carry light from town to town, to terrorist threats and natural disasters, to the flexing of political muscles, to "power plays" in a hockey rink, power and its influence are inescapable. In fact, there's a generally held belief that all things are at the mercy of either ignorant, random forces, or of political decisions that can work either for good or evil. So it is remarkable, in light of these fears, to read this emphatic statement in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, "The central fact of the Bible is the superiority of spiritual over physical power." Science and Health, p. 131.
The power of God, or Spirit, is vividly described in the Bible, beginning with the first chapter and verse in Genesis: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." This divine power, this infinite energy, force, or law that expresses the divine will, is specifically identified in the second verse: "And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." This spirit of God—this breath of God, or divine "wind," to translate directly from the Hebrew—identifies the divine power as it appears in the Old Testament. In the New Testament, its name—which, translated from the Greek, is identical to the Hebrew in meaning—is the "Holy Ghost." Mrs. Eddy described this term in Science and Health as "Divine Science; the development of eternal Life, Truth, and Love." Ibid., p. 588.
What distinguishes this power, divine Science, from all material forces—nuclear, gravitational, and electromagnetic forces, for example—is intelligence. It is conscious power in perpetual motion. And what distinguishes this intelligent consciousness from will power and general trends of human thinking is its perfect and unopposed goodness and love. In fact, the Holy Ghost is the omnipresent authority and power of divine Love, God. This infinite energy of Love forever shepherds and intelligently relates all creation. Both individual and universal harmony result from its activity. And this Holy Ghost, divine Science, with which God reveals and develops all creation, is not a mere glorious abstraction. It is a concrete and constant divine presence here and now. It initiates and sustains every activity of good, while subduing and destroying the supposed powers of the carnal mind, including sin, disease, and death.
