To comprehend and practice Christian Science, everyone who is interested in this subject should learn to think definitely. This prescription applies to all, from the beginners to the most advanced student, for every Christian Scientist can continue to be a learner in this respect. Everyone can learn to think more and more distinctly and positively concerning the illimitable subjects of scientific thought. Mrs. Eddy pointed to the need for definite thinking when she said: "Spirit names and blesses all. Without natures particularly defined, objects and subjects would be obscure, and creation would be full of nameless offspring,— wanderers from the parent Mind, strangers in a tangled wilderness" (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p.507).
For Christian Scientists, the principal subject of thought is God; and we hold that God must be known— actually known, not merely believed or worshiped. On both of these points, we have a pronouncement by the Master himself: "This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent" (John 17:3). (See, also, I Peter 1:2-4.) And it should be evident that to know any subject, especially the most important of all subjects, requires particular thought. So, we should not be content to declare always or only that God is All. We should not be content alone with even the most definitive names for Deity.
How, then, can God be known? One of the answers to this question has been neglected by most religionists. In modern times, it has been developed only by Mary Baker Eddy and her followers. This answer is that God can be known by what He does for man and consequently for mankind. Moses, the founder of the best pre-Christian religion, knew God chiefly in this way. He had no definitive name for Deity. (See Exodus 3:13-15; 6:1-8.) Likewise, the most helpful authors in the Old Testament, such as the writers of the twenty-third and ninety-first Psalms, made God known mainly by the means just stated. So, too, Jesus, the greatest figure in the history of religious thought, though he spoke of God with a degree of particularity, yet he taught largely and perhaps most effectively by declaring and proving what God does for man and mankind.
