IN the Christian Science textbook,"Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mrs. Eddy defines God as follows ("p. 465): "God is incorporeal, divine, supreme, infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love." The belief so long held by mortals that God is manlike, subject to wrath and changeableness, and dwelling afar off, is fast giving place to the knowledge which Christian Science brings that God is Spirit, ever present, unchanging divine Principle, governing His universe, including man, harmoniously. Likewise, the belief that man is material, subject to discordant conditions, is being seen as a falsity.
In the first chapter of Genesis it is recorded that God created man in His own image and likeness, and that He beheld His work and pronounced it "very good." It follows, then, that man, being made in God's likeness, is spiritual, like God, Spirit, and that he reflects the perfect qualities of God, and cannot possess any quality unlike Him. On page 258 of Science and Health our Leader writes: "Man is more than a material form with a mind inside, which must escape from its environments in order to be immortal. Man reflects infinity, and this reflection is the true idea of God."
Divine Mind sees and knows man as spiritual and perfect, but the so-called human mind thinks of man as physical and imperfect. As the human mind becomes enlightened by spiritual sense, the facts of being will be comprehended, and man's unity with God seen as an actuality, in which man cannot lose his identity. It is, therefore, the false sense of self which must be relinquished. When we obtain and retain even a glimpse of man's real selfhood as the reflection of God, we gain a sense of security and assurance of harmonious, continuous life. The so-called mortal man is then seen to be only a counterfeit, the so-called mortal mind's mistaken, erroneous sense of man.
