There is a sentence on page 494 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," which is used as an inscription on the walls of many Christian Science church edifices, and which has brought help and encouragement to unnumbered persons. This sentence, written by Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, is as follows: "Divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need."
Some young students of Christian Science may have wondered how, or in what way, divine Love meets human needs, since it is conscious only of its own perfection and the perfection of its creation—man and the universe. It is obvious that a sense of need could not exist in infinite Mind, divine Love; nor could its spiritual creation know lack or incompleteness. Therefore, if need seems to exist, it can only be in what is called the human mind.
The question then arises, What is it that the human mind needs? The need of humanity is for healing, redemption, salvation. For example, one of the things from which humanity needs to be saved is fear. What is it that destroys fear? Consciousness of the ever-presence and omnipotence of Love. The Apostle John wrote (I John 4:18), "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear." Thus it is seen that divine Love, in which is no fear, revealing its allness through inspired writings, casts fear out of human consciousness and meets a crying need.
Again, the human mind, lacking the knowledge of spiritual wholeness, needs the consciousness of perfection, which constitutes true health or harmony. And how is this need to be supplied? Mrs. Eddy has answered this question in one brief sentence which is found on page 307 of "Miscellaneous Writings." There she says, "God gives you His spiritual ideas, and in turn, they give you daily supplies." It is plain, then, that since God, divine Mind, is expressed through an infinitude of spiritual ideas which are always present and always available, it is in this way that the human need is met. In other words, one who becomes conscious, through the teachings of Christian Science, that the limitless supply of Mind's perfect, spiritual ideas is always present, can no longer believe in the real existence of lack or limitation of any kind. This true consciousness manifests itself in human experience as an adequate supply of needful things, and thus the human need is met.
Material illustrations are not, as a rule, entirely satisfactory; so it is often found wise to adopt the plan referred to by Paul in his first epistle to the Corinthians, of "comparing spiritual things with spiritual." However, in considering the question, "How can divine Love meet a need of which it is not aware?" it may be helpful to use the following illustration. Let us say that the sun knows nothing of the worlds on which its light shines. Nevertheless, because it is the nature of the sun to shine, every planet in our solar system benefits by the sun's light. Thus the face of the earth turned toward the sun is warmed and lighted by its rays. Similarly, divine Love does not know the problems of human existence; but its nature is to express itself impartially, and all who turn their thought to universal Love as the Principle of harmony and abide by its law find themselves correspondingly blessed.
Let us suppose the human need to be for an improved sense of health, which is frequently the case. How does divine Love meet this need? Love, Christian Science teaches, is divine Mind, and on page 251 of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy says, "The divine Mind makes perfect, acts upon the so-called human mind through truth, leads the human mind to relinquish all error, to find the divine Mind to be the only Mind, and the healer of sin, disease, death." Could there be a better or more understandable explanation of the method or process by which immortal Mind, divine Love, heals disease and thus meets another human need?
Perhaps the greatest human need is that mortals should be healed of sin. For, broadly speaking, what is known as sin, either in flagrant or in subtle forms, is often the cause, not only of so-called physical disease, but of many other phases of discord. How, then, is one to be healed of sin in any or all of its forms? How is one to be lifted above the beliefs of jealousy, envy, greed, lust, guilt, self-condemnation, self-pity, and the myriad other evils that accompany a material, mortal sense of existence? Again our Leader provides the answer to the question and shows us how this greatest of all human needs is met; for on page 469 of Science and Health she says: "The exterminator of error is the great truth that God, good, is the only Mind, and that the supposititious opposite of infinite Mind—called devil or evil— is not Mind, is not Truth, but error, without intelligence or reality. There can be but one Mind, because there is but one God; and if mortals claimed no other Mind and accepted no other, sin would be unknown."
Thus we learn from Christian Science how it is that "every human need" is met by divine Love through the revealing to human consciousness of the fact that in absolute truth there is no need to be met; that in reality there is no unfulfilled desire, no sense of incompleteness or imperfection, no unhappiness or inharmony, no sin, no disease, no death. The claim that man—God's reflection —is or ever was subject to any of these errors of belief is not true and does not emanate from divine Love, in which man has eternal, harmonious being. The understanding of man's changeless perfection as the son of God, or idea of divine Mind, is the Christ, Truth, which was demonstrated by Jesus. And his beloved disciple wrote: "In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him."
