Once a Christian Science student was heard to say that it sometimes seemed to him as if some who knew nothing of Christian Science, and did not even want to know anything of it, had an easier time and got along better than those who were making an honest effort to conform their lives to its teachings. He felt resentful over the struggles he was having, and was rebellious that the human situation which he deemed afflictive did not disappear from his experience; it did not seem "fair" to him, nor compatible with the teaching that God is Love. He was so honest in his doubts and questionings that the Christian Scientist to whom he spoke took some pains to show him a possible "why and wherefore" of the difficulties he was experiencing.
He was reminded that Christian Scientists need especially to consider the fact that these experiences which they call their "struggles," represent only the resistance of mortal mind to the proof of its own nothingness by the demonstration of the allness of divine Mind. This resistance of the human mind is really the great proof of its finiteness; if it could understand truth, it would know truth; and if it could know truth, it would be at-one with truth. Material belief is wholly incapable of apprehending in the least degree the spiritual idea; and when this idea appears to human consciousness and begins at once, through its own inherent activity and law, to displace erroneous belief, this belief does not always welcome its own displacement and resents it as interference; and believing itself intelligent and capable of resisting this activity of the divine idea, it does its utmost to substantiate this claim.
As the Christ-idea appears to human consciousness, every material belief therein included feels the impulse of divine law and must sooner or later respond to its power, and ultimately and inevitably through advancing footsteps of betterment forsake itself. The apostle Paul must have had some thought of this experience of bringing human belief into adjustment to the law of the spiritual idea when he wrote, "The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds ... and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." Every stronghold of human belief "that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God" must ultimately surrender itself to this weapon of spiritual warfare,—the spiritual idea. The experiences which belief demands to make itself ready to come as a willing captive to this obedience, determines the nature and extent of the individual's struggles.
