THROUGH the careful and diligent study of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, we inevitably reach the conclusion that the amelioration of physical discord is not the primary mission of Christian Science. Its mission, more than merely the improvement of particular mortal beliefs, is the elimination of the fundamentally erroneous belief that man is material.
Jesus healed the sick, and he also plainly stated, "These signs shall follow them that believe." By "believe" he obviously meant understand or actually perceive spiritual truth. He further indicated that the new birth, the recognition here and now of man's perfection as the son of God, is the goal of our endeavor, and that the "signs following" are the healing results of spiritual enlightenment. Again, St. Paul said that "the old man" is to be put off; and he explained that this putting off is to be done by putting on "the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness."
Christian Science shows that righteousness means or denotes right or true or spiritual knowing. Perhaps only a comparatively small number of those who take up the study of Christian Science do so with the definite intention of seeking righteousness. The great majority are seeking some material benefit, such as physical healing, supply, relief from distressing circumstances of one sort or another; but at the outset the individual may not be aware that, essentially, he is seeking spiritual knowing. Nevertheless, in the search for relief from the errors of a false material sense through the study of Christian Science, the individual human thought begins to find something outside and beyond itself — outside the belief of matter in its various phases. And as it finds this something, which is the inception of spiritual knowing, thought reaches out more and more for a greater understanding of God, good, and so is progressively susceptible or open to the mission of Christian Science.
