IT is of the utmost importance in the study of the Bible and the Christian Science text-book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy, that clear distinction be made between those statements which are absolute in their meaning, which express the spiritual fact, and those which are relative, which express the human sense, the material point of view. The word absolute is a final term, the strongest term known to any language, and it admits of no degrees whatever. Many of the statements of the Bible and our text-book are absolute. They express unqualified Science, or divine Truth. The relative terms are such as refer to the material sense of things, that state of which we have to take cognizance because mankind cling so tenaciously to a belief of materiality.
When it is stated in our text-book that there is no sin, we understand that an absolute statement of fact is made, because in the realm of divine Truth where all is pure and holy there is and can be no sin. When our text-book declares that sin must be destroyed, we are not to see an inconsistency between the one declaration and the other, but we are to know that the former statement is a statement of absolute truth, while the latter is only relative; that is, that the first relates to divine Truth, and the latter to human error. The concept of sin held by the author of our text-book, broadly stated, is simply the difference between divine Truth and human or mortal belief. In the measure in which thought is not in harmony with divine Truth, it is under the dominion of error or sin. Hence when our text-book seems to recognize the existence of sin, it refers to mortal belief, that great delusion which asserts that to be which in reality is not. Likewise, when our text-book speaks of sickness it refers to mortal belief, for in the realm of divine Truth there is no sickness. When our text-book speaks of Life it refers to the eternal Life which is God, and its repeated assertion that all is Life, is the affirmation of the absolute fact which constitutes the reality of the universe.
When it is affirmed that there is no death, this is another, but somewhat negative way of saying that all is Life, for if the latter is true, the former must also be true. When it is said that death is an enemy to be destroyed, this is a relative statement, referring to mortal belief, and not to divine fact. We are not to understand that, because in the realm of absolute spiritual Truth there is and can be no death, the phenomenon of death does not exist as a mortal belief.
