ON page 242 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy writes, "In patient obedience to a patient God, let us labor to dissolve with the universal solvent of Love the adamant of error, —self-will, self-justification, and self-love." In these forceful and concise words our Leader sums up the entire problem of human existence, namely, the overcoming of a belief in a material selfhood apart from God.
A dictionary defines "adamant" as "a name formerly given to the diamond and other substances of extreme hardness." It becomes apparent, then, that error, like the adamant which is difficult to dissolve or dispel, may be analyzed under these three phases: "self-will, self-justification, and self-love. Of these three, the one claiming to be the most active and aggressive, and therefore seemingly the most harmful, may be self-will; but self-will has its basis in self-love, which is based on belief in an independent existence apart from God. Self-will finds expression in all kinds of discord and inharmony. In its wake follows the third phase, self-justification, through which it seeks to excuse its own boldness, attempting to counterfeit the creation of the Almighty.
In the infinitude of divine Mind there is but one will and one selfhood. As God, divine Mind, necessarily includes all true ideas, so the selfhood of God must include His manifestation, man and the universe. God, then, is infinite selfhood, or person, which includes each and every identity. The only true selfhood the real man possesses is that which is his by reflection, as the image and likeness of God.
