On page 503 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy opens up a marvelous vista to the thought of the student of Christian Science when she refers to the spiritual fact of "the eternal wonder,—that infinite space is peopled with God's ideas, reflecting Him in countless spiritual forms." In contemplating this wonder, through the understanding which Christian Science gives, it is as if we were enabled to view a new universe, even as we stood in the midst of the old, a universe of spiritual ideas, absolutely perfect and eternally enduring.
Now there is no subject of greater importance to mankind than this of God's universe, the universe of spiritual reality; and for the reason that a knowledge of spiritual reality gives us the power to distinguish between it and the false sense of it, the so-called material universe, and to see the latter as unreal. What, then, is God's universe? It is the expression or reflection of Himself. And since God is Mind, or Spirit, His universe consists of spiritual ideas. Further, since God is perfect, His ideas must also be perfect. Hence, the spiritual ideas which constitute God's universe or creation are eternally beautiful, eternally good; and, moreover, their relationship to each other is absolutely harmonious, even as the relationship of each idea to God Himself is absolutely harmonious.
The universe, then, of perfect spiritual ideas exists, and is the only real universe. What, then, of that which is called the material universe? What is to be said of the material objects of which mortals seem to be conscious, as, for example, the sun and moon and stars; the mountains and lakes and rivers; the trees and the flowers; the birds that fly and the things that creep; so-called material man himself? All of them are material concepts, not spiritual ideas. And since spiritual ideas alone are true, not a single material concept can possibly be real. Our Leader writes thus of the material concepts or beliefs of mortal mind (Science and Health, p. 78): "The decaying flower, the blighted bud, the gnarled oak, the ferocious beast,—like the discords of disease, sin, and death,— are unnatural." She continues, "They are the falsities of sense, the changing deflections of mortal mind; they are not the eternal realities of Mind."
