Every thoughtful person, not a Christian Scientist, finds himself inquiring, more or less frequently, as to the nature of what he calls his consciousness. He feels sure that he is aware of his own selfhood, of his own thoughts, of the existence of other human beings like himself, of objects external to himself in a material universe: he is certain that he possesses consciousness. He is certain also that he can be conscious of good thoughts, loving, pure, compassionate, merciful, just thoughts; and, moreover, he believes that he can be conscious of thoughts that are evil—unloving, impure, unkind, unjust. The point is that every normal person is aware of being conscious, and that his consciousness may consist of good thoughts and evil thoughts, of concepts which are spiritual or material.
The fact of consciousness is taken for granted in every human system of thought. Since ever they realized that they could reason coherently, men have regarded consciousness as basic. But never until the coming of Christian Science was mankind able scientifically to determine the nature of true consciousness, and so to distinguish with certainty between true consciousness and false consciousness. The teaching of Christian Science on this question is radical, destroying as it does many of the most cherished beliefs of mortals.
How, then, does Christian Science regard the question of consciousness? It declares that God, the Supreme Being, is infinite Mind, and that man, Mind's idea, is the reflection of God. This being so, of what is man conscious? He is conscious of the things of God. That is to say, the real man, who is the image or reflection of God, is conscious of the ideas of God, those ideas which constitute the real or spiritual creation. As Mrs. Eddy says on page 276 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," "Man and his Maker are correlated in divine Science, and real consciousness is cognizant only of the things of God." And since "the things of God" are all there is to know, God being infinite, the consciousness which knows them can alone be reckoned as real or true consciousness.
