THE first chapter of Genesis reveals that God is cause,—"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." The full revelation or discernment of Truth announced by Jesus, was prophetically outlined in the book of Revelation, which similarly proclaims God as cause — I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last." From Genesis to the Apocalypse the Bible discloses, by means of reason and revelation the footsteps leading from erring finite sense into spiritual understanding. Reason alone is inadequate to explain God. It has been said that "reason is only our intellectual eye and like the eye, to see, it needs light,—to see clearly and far, it needs the light of heaven." Reasoning is defined as the process of arriving at conclusions by a systematic comparison of facts," and it is obvious that if the so-called facts are incorrect, the conclusion is faulty. It was once believed that the earth is flat. This theory is now known to be false, therefore any past reasoning which was based upon this as a fact must have led to untrue conclusions.
In the same way, many things which at present are believed to be facts, will be seen as untruths when a larger perception of God's perfect creation shall be manifest Hence, comparing facts as we see them, and drawing conclusions therefrom, cannot be an absolutely correct process. This accounts for the unreliability of the human reason. March's Thesaurus calls attention to that type of reason denominated ratiocination, and defines it thus; The process of drawing conclusions from the premise stated. By following this process, no matter what the facts may seem to be, one does reach the correct conclusion, provided the premises are right, and whenever we speak of the correct operation of reason, we refer to this process of ratiocination, for the premises of which we must look to revelation. It is necessary that revelation should convince the reason, and, thus convinced, the rational faculty serves to present revelation to mankind.
Guided by revelation, the author of the book of Genesis doubtless perceived the faultless premise that God, Spirit is the only cause and creator. But because he allowed his gaze to be turned aside by the seeming facts of materiality, and because of his vain attempt to explain materiality as evolved from God, his judgment was led astray, and, as the narrative proceeds, the book becomes lamentably entangled in the mazes of mortal thinking. For centuries mankind have been reasoning about God. They have struggled in the dark to understand Life; since reason, apart from revelation, is nothing but mortal mind wandering in the mists of its own creating. Mrs. Eddy says, "Reason, rightly directed, serves to correct the errors of corporeal sense" (Science and Health, p. 494). Revelation is the disclosure of Truth through the perception of God as Spirit and man as His spiritual and perfect idea. In so far as human reason aids mankind in joining revelation and understanding, apprehending spiritual truth, in so far it is beneficial and essential to humanity.
Christian Science gives access to the hidden treasures of the Bible. It shows that only as one starts from the basis of revelation can an understanding of God be brought to human perception. This Science asserts that every step of reasoning must be submitted to the light of revelation, allowing it to act upon reason and to cast aside as worthless all so-called rational argument that is not susceptible of proof; thus making both reason and revelation practical through demonstration, purging thought from the errors of sense, and proving spiritual understanding to be an ever-present, ever-active, all-powerful reality. In this practical, operative Christian Science—Christ knowledge—revelation rightly dominates reason and penetrates beyond the veil of matter into the glorious understanding of God.
The so-called science of mathematics is based entirely on reason, ignoring revelation altogether, and its field is therefore restricted. The theories concerning the three dimensions — length, breadth, and thickness, or in other words, the line, plane, and space — have to do only with material projection and concepts. In explaining these dimensions, the mathematician considers what appears to human view to be fact, taking as his basis the atom or particle of matter. But he finds that he must practically endow it with intelligence, in order that it may be free to move in the three dimensions. The mathematician assumes that the atom's first action was movement in a straight path. This movement is the first dimension, length, or the extension called line in mathematics. Eventually the atom meets an impediment in its path. Since the first dimension cannot bestow entire freedom, it gains greater liberty by passing around the obstruction. This added possibility of action is the mathematical breadth. The atom now moves about in these two dimensions, line and plane, but it does not find entire freedom. It still meets with obstacles to be overcome, and it must pass over or under these obstructions. This movement up and down adds the concept of thickness, the third dimension. The atom now moves in the line, in the plane, and in space. Finding that the three dimensions are not able to explain all phenomena, however, the mathematician is awakening to the fact that he must look for what he is pleased to call a fourth dimension.
Every human consciousness is seeking for infinity, but the mathematician, in working to-day for a statement of the fourth dimension, may not realize that the impetus back of his search is the faint glimpse which he possesses of the eternal law of infinity. It is clear, moreover, that when infinity is grasped, thought cannot be dimensional or measurable. It is only the finite mind which sees according to material measurement. As it becomes evangelized, human sense loses its concept of material and dimensional existence in the understanding of Spirit and its manifestations. Human reasoning has reached its limit at the third dimension. For the solution of higher problems the gaze must be turned, not toward reason, but toward the revelation that comes through spiritual understanding. This revelation has come in Christian Science, and when understood, it is accepted by the reason. A recent writer has suggested that the dimensional idea will be an aid to religion. It should be stated that this idea disappears with the coming of the apprehension of God as infinite Spirit. This is the Science of Mind. To this end reason must unite with revelation in acknowledging Spirit, Mind, "both noumena and phenomena, — the first and only Cause" (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 23).
Returning to the consideration of the atom, in extending its area of action we note that, according to human belief, as the atom moves more and more freely material limitations disappear and additional dimensions are brought to light. Nevertheless, though this process of subtracting material limitation, or matter, and adding freedom were to be continued indefinitely, infinite freedom could never be attained thereby, since infinity can be gained only as the atom, all matter, disappears. But matter cannot lay off itself. It can no more be metamorphosed or transfused into Spirit than can darkness into light. We find the "fourth dimension," the freedom of Spirit, only as material sense with all its diminutives disappears; hence, in the search for freedom material sense testimony must be dropped.
This view of the incompatibility of matter and mind is not held by Christian Scientists alone. Many of the most profound thinkers and philosophers are accepting this idea. Coleridge said, "As soon as a thing becomes intelligible, it ceases to be material." When the mathematician shall have grasped the reality which has actuated the search of the idealists since the time of Plato, then he will have grasped "the fourth dimension." Many of the world's great thinkers have paved the way for the modern idealists, who hold that things exist merely as ideas, that matter is but a mode of human thinking. When the mathematician shall have perceived this and shall have become conscious that matter must be excluded from the reasoning; when he shall have discerned the fundamental distinction between right and wrong thinking, namely, that right thinking reflects God, who is infinite Mind, and that wrong thinking, because it is wrong or evil, does not emanate from Mind, and therefore cannot express infinity, but must be finite and false — then and then only will he have gained that which he has sought as a "fourth dimension." Every one who has spiritually perceived the truth Mrs. Eddy has given to the world in her writings, understands this. From God's thought spacial dimension must be excluded.
We may say that the fourth dimension, as revealed through Christian Science, is the unfoldment to human consciousness of the unqualified supremacy, the allness of Mind and its ideas, and the consequent nothingness of matter or mortal sense. This is not merely an admission of Mind's infinitude, it is the understanding and demonstration thereof. The third dimension represents the limit of human reasoning in this line. The fourth dimension transcends human reasoning, the sense of limitation. It refutes the annihilation of individuality and declares "that all true thoughts . . . come from God and return to Him, — and untruths belong not to His creation, therefore these are null and void" (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 22). Since the idea is the exact reflection of infinite Spirit, it possesses infinite freedom, as it acts in immensity — the infinite understanding of the divine Principle, Love. Moreover the idea is (not shall be) free. "Behold, now is the accepted time." As all this unfolds, human thought rises in the scale of being to larger perception, advances toward freedom, and comes at length to the grandeur of that unlimited outlook upon infinity, to which dimension does not pertain. Thought has ascended above the qualification of measurement to understanding.
It is necessary that all human reasoning yield to revelation — the glorified vision, the Mind "which was also in Christ Jesus." Then faith may be proved by works, even as the humble Nazarene proved his faith in going about his Father's business, — preaching the gospel, healing the sick, bringing deliverance to the captive. When even one bound by sin, sickness, death, fear, sorrow, want, or hatred was set free by the Master, the infinitude of Spirit was proven. The opening of the prison for Peter and the other apostles was in demonstration of the unsubstantiality of matter. It was Mind that liberated them, setting aside every obstruction. The walls, ceiling, and floor could not bind the freedom of those who knew the power of Mind. In the same way, after the resurrection, when his so-called material body appeared and disappeared through closed doors, the Master proved that law lay not in material forces, but in spiritual might, and he demonstrated this divine law of omnipotent and omnipresent Mind.
As in the time of Jesus, so to-day every case of healing through Christian Science demonstrates this Principle. Christian Science stands before the world with the same injunctions which the Master gave to his disciples: "Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils;" "By their fruits ye shall know them." We are his disciples in proportion as we obey his commands. It is only the clear spiritual thought, apprehending the true individual man as idea, the generic man as unity of ideas, the fatherhood of God as creator of idea, and the motherhood of God as the allness of Mind, which is able to obey all the injunctions of Jesus the Christ.
The work of Jesus' earthly career was so to grasp man's immaculate conception as to prove the oneness of Christ with the Father. It is our work, through spiritual activity, to have part in the resurrection, which proves flesh or matter to be nothing, no one and nowhere; and in the ascension, which demonstrates Mind as infinite, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and — all. The earthly, material sense of dimension is overcome, transcended only as one comes out from among them (material beliefs) and is separate; only as one arrays oneself in the white robe of righteousness; only as one stands "before the throne of God" and serves Him "day and night in his temple" (consciousness); only as one drinks from the water of the river of Life.
The reign of Mind, made discernible through Christian Science, is the new heaven which St. John saw in the vision. Mrs. Eddy says the new heaven is the New Jerusalem. This is identical with John's perception, wherein the angel showed "that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God." This grand realization of the infinitude of Spirit wipes out all sense of material being, all sorrow, all sickness, sin, and death, all impediment to conscious, constant communion with God, good. The divine understanding, wherein the earthly sense with its human reasoning and personal opinion is wiped away, reveals the allness, the oneness of Mind, divine Love, — the perfect Principle which eternally expresses the perfect idea, man dwelling forever in the blissful activities of heaven.
