We learn from Science and Health (p. 468) that '"man is not material; he is spiritual." We might have learned as much from the Bible, but we did not until Mrs. Eddy pointed the way. Jesus said to the woman of Samaria.' "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit." So God's man must be spiritual, else the above statement requires an impossibility, for a material sense cannot worship in spirit; that is, spiritually. Again, we read that "God created man in his own image;" hence, if God is Spirit, man must be spiritual rather than material. In the second account of the creation, however, we are told that "the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground;" and this doctrine, that God created man materially, is taught or implied in many other parts of the Bible. In consequence of these teachings, the common belief among religious people has been that God created man both spiritually and materially: that while he is upon the earth man is primarily material and only secondarily spiritual, but that by the process of death he ceases to be material and becomes wholly spiritual.
By earnest study and prayer, Mrs. Eddy reached that spiritual illumination which enabled her to discern between the true and the false. She saw that in truth God creates man spiritually and the universe spiritually, and that is the only way they were and are created. She discovered that mortal belief which is a delusive consciousness of matter and evil, regards man and the universe as material; but, though material things seem to be realities, they have only the status of a false sense. This theory may seem very fanciful at first thought; but Mrs. Eddy and thousands of her followers have put it to the practical test, and find that it is demonstrably true in healing the sick, reforming the sinful, and removing discordant conditions of various kinds. Furthermore, in Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy has shown how, as rational creatures, we can deny material evidence and understand and believe that man and the whole creation are spiritual, and not at all material; that all which is real is good, and that there is not in reality any evil; and she has shown how this truth can be understandingly and scientifically applied by the intelligent believer to the healing of disease and the casting out of sin. The import and application of the "scientific statement of being," above quoted, that "man is not material; he is spiritual," is rapidly dawning on human thought.
We learn from Science and Health that God is the only substance; other names for God being Life, Truth, Love, Mind, Spirit, which are substance, being identical with God. We learn that man himself is not substance, but the offspring, reflection, or idea of substance, or God. (See Science and Health, p. 301.) To express the relation of man to God, the word "reflection" has been selected by Mrs. Eddy, and her wisdom in this is seen when we think how happily it conveys the idea that man is a perfect likeness of God, and yet is not substance. One's reflection in a mirror is a perfect likeness of him, and of his every motion and expression, yet the reflection has no substance. In so far, however, as the word reflection would suggest that there is some substance outside of God to reflect Him, as the mirror is outside of the person it reflects, it does not adequately express the teaching of Christian Science. Mrs. Eddy says, "The universe reflects and expresses the divine substance or Mind: therefore God is seen only in the spiritual universe and spiritual man, as the sun is seen in the ray of light which goes out from it" (Science and Health, p. 300).
