In the luminous, yet marvelously concise passage with which Mrs. Eddy, on page 503 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," restores to the opening words of the first chapter of Genesis their original spiritual sense, God's creation is described as consisting of "the unfolding of spiritual ideas and their identities." This simple, scientific phrase lifts thought to grasp the reality of that which is spiritual, as distinct from the unreality of that which is palpable only to the physical senses.
The philosophical speculations and poetical yearnings of ages failed to discern in God the one complete reality; and, thus, they have afforded no means for separating true ideas from counterfeits. Uncertain of the former, deluded by the latter, mortals have taken refuge in a materialism that is at once complex and cruel; and it is from this bondage that Christian Science rescues mankind. The passage which has been cited makes it clear that creation is not a miraculous metamorphosis, nor even a painful evolution of material forms; but it is the great fact of eternal Being made manifest through obedience to God's unchanging law.
As soon as the essential oneness and allness of God is apprehended in Christian Science,—the "I am that I am" in the Hebrew characterization, —it becomes apparent that the only instrumentalities of accomplishment are those which He provides; and the student becomes engaged in his happy task of discovering and putting into use those divine instrumentalities. This at once brings him face to face with the opposing claims of the so-called carnal mind,—the principalities and powers of darkness, which, through every avenue afforded by material education and temperament, are continually suggesting the existence of a creative force that is unlike God. Only through Christian Science is a decisive victory over evil possible; for Christian Science alone, as the law of God and man,—Principle and idea,—enables mortals to destroy the seeming effects of evil, separate fact from fiction, relate effect to cause, and efface the sense-testimony which would attach reality to a supposititious material cause.
