As an understanding is obtained of Christian Science one comes to regard what are termed the past, the present, and the future very differently from what one did previously. For example, the past, humanly regarded, used to be considered very real so far as our lives were concerned, something very definite on which we believed they were dependent. It appeared to exert its influence, sometimes pronouncedly, in the present; for did not our past wrong thinking or right thinking, our past misdeeds or good deeds, determine the condition in which we found ourselves? And because many viewed it in this way, did not their misdeeds in not a few instances continue to hang around their necks like millstones? As regards the future, the same kind of reasoning was in evidence: we blindly believed that our lives in the days to come would largely be the resultant of our past and present experiences.
When we become students of Christian Science we begin to see things differently. Humanly speaking, the past, the present, and the future have still to be considered; but we now view them from quite a different angle, for we have received from Christian Science an understanding of real being such as we never have had before. What is the nature of this understanding? It is that real being is always the same. Christian Science has informed us that God is infinite and ever present, ever the same perfect Spirit or Mind, and that His creation, the manifestation of Himself, is always the same perfect creation. In other words, God's creation, including man, is the same "in the beginning" as it is now, and as it ever shall be. Thus the present—the real present—is always the same, because in it is manifested the perfect creation of the one ever present, perfect God. Mrs. Eddy says on page 471 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," "God is infinite, therefore ever present, and there is no other power nor presence."
Speaking scientifically, then, the real past was the same as the present, and the real future will also be the same as the present; which is to say, that in reality there is only the spiritual real present. Our Leader writes (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 12),"We own no past, no future, we possess only now." We are enabled to grasp the truth of this profound saying as we understand in some measure the true nature of God and His creation, the eternal perfection of God and the everlasting perfection of His complete, spiritual creation.
