Christian Scientists know that man, the image and likeness of God, has no creative intelligence of his own, because intelligence is inherent in God, the creative Mind. "Intelligence," says Mary Baker Eddy in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 469), "is omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence;" and, "It is the primal and eternal quality of infinite Mind, of the triune Principle,—Life, Truth, and Love,—named God." From this infinite divine reservior of all truth, man draws his intelligence; and since the intelligence of God is boundless, intelligence and wisdom forever unfold to man. And as we understand and apply this fact, we correspondingly escape from the limitations of ignorance, fear, and lack.
Human intelligence, so called, that is, the intelligence which is supposed to originate in the human brain or intellect, is not adequate to handle or control the exigencies of human life. It is not able to provide a philosophy that satisfies human longing for reality, nor can it fashion a theology that is demonstrable or preventive of human woe. Human philosophy has never opened the road of salvation for the human race. Its empty platitudes are helpless and futile when men face despair, woe, disease, poverty, and death. The intellectual student may ponder the categories of Kant, but they avail him little when he is faced with the ills of mortality.
Christian Science makes clear that the teachings and practice of Christ Jesus alone furnish a philosophy and theology adequate to provide salvation for all men. The words and works of Jesus proved the divine intelligence which animated him and gave him power and wisdom. Equipped with this intelligence, he had power with God and men; he healed the sick, raised the dead, controlled the wind and the sea. His reflected intelligence laid hold of divine realities and made them available for human needs. He denied any inherent intelligence or power in himself, but ever declared that his power and wisdom came from the eternal Father. He said: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise. For the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him all things that himself doeth."
