Every sincere seeker after Truth, as revealed in Christian Science, soon learns the value of scientific discrimination. Possibly, one has first been attracted to Christian Science through learning by its teaching that God is the only cause of all that really exists. This fact had appealed to him, and soon he found himself discriminating between spiritual and so-called material causation.
To discriminate aright, however, the student finds that he must first understand God; he must first accept the truth that God is Mind, without material embodiment; that the "great First Cause," or God, is Spirit. Possibly he reasons thus: If God is Mind, and God is good, what, then, is the human mind which seems to be both good and evil? For enlightenment he may turn to page 591 of the textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," and observe how Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, discriminates between Mind and mortal mind. Mind, she says, is "the only I, or Us," adding that Mind is "not that which is in man, but the divine Principle, or God, of whom man is the full and perfect expression." On the same page commences the definition of "mortal mind." After careful study of these two definitions, the student finds that he is able to discriminate between Mind, God, and mortal mind, so called, for he learns that the latter is but a myth, based on the false beliefs of the material senses, which erroneously testify that life, intelligence, and substance are in matter.
Turning to the account of spiritual creation, as found in the first chapter of Genesis, the student sees clearly for the first time that the universe, including man, must be spiritual. He reads, "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him." Further enlightenment on the subject of man is gained through a careful study of the Christian Science textbook.
