THE great problem confronting mortals in the working out of their salvation, according to the Scriptures, is the overcoming of the belief in a material selfhood. The physical senses, which have been carefully developed since the day of mortal birth, constantly and persistently attempt to maintain the fallacious beliefs that life is the product of matter, and that matter is the basis or foundation of existence, although this so called existence is liable at any moment to interruption or apparent extinguishment. Confronted by this false evidence, mortals seem to go on accumulating human experiences through these senses, believing that they live by so doing. Such beliefs presuppose an existence apart from God; but through Christian Science they are seen to be unreal and therefore an impossibility.
The so-called physical senses, recognizing only material objects or things, have no faculty of knowing or recognizing Spirit, God, as Life. Therefore Jesus' statement, "God is a Spirit," cannot be rightly understood through these senses. Jesus taught that real life or existence is not dependent on matter or material conditions of any sort. He said, "This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent."
The Scriptures aver that man is God's image and likeness. As God is Spirit, or Mind, man must be fundamentally different from what appears to the material senses to be man. The real man, God's image and likeness, must have a spiritual selfhood, inherent not in matter, but in Spirit. And this selfhood must be forever coexistent with God, its divine Principle. All so-called evil tendencies with which mortals contend are the outcome of this supposed material selfhood, which has no support from Spirit, God, but is the seeming effect of the false beliefs of what Mrs. Eddy terms mortal mind. The Apostle Paul designated this mortal mind the carnal mind, and told the Romans that it "is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." In other words, the carnal or mortal mind has only a fabulous existence. It does not come within the range of divine Mind, and is therefore wholly outside the realm of God's law, which alone governs man.
