CHRISTIAN SCIENCE not only presents an understanding of God, man, and the universe, but also the way of obtaining this understanding. In defining the universe in terms of spiritual truth, Mrs. Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, not only tells of its true nature, but also reveals the mode of understanding it when she says in the textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p.68), "Christian Science presents unfoldment, not accretion."
The inability to adjust our thinking to the viewpoint that understanding comes from unfoldment rather than accretion, accounts for much of the discouragement of those who declare they have studied the Christian Science textbook but cannot grasp its teachings. Since "God is no respecter of persons," whatever is possible for one of His children to understand is possible for all to understand. The root of the trouble lies in the false belief that man has a mind separate from God, in the ignorance of what constitutes Truth and the real man's relation to God, Truth.
Since erroneous human belief accords to each a mind of his own, outside of which is supposed to lie the rest of the universe, it would be the natural deduction to suppose that knowledge of the universe must be acquired. One has but to listen to a little child at the questioning age to realize how eagerly he reaches out for information. The process goes on with years; and whether one becomes well educated or not is supposed to depend upon one's ability to learn, one's ability to retain or remember what he learns, one's opportunity for obtaining this knowledge, and the earnestness with which one applies himself to obtain an education. But even if one possesses in the highest degree all of these requirements, and becomes well educated, of what after all does mere material knowledge consist? Of a mistaken sense of God, man, and the universe, governed by so-called material laws, that ends in sickness, sin, and death.
