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SCIENTIFIC HUMILITY

From the December 1944 issue of The Christian Science Journal


SCIENTIFIC humility may be likened to the attitude of a mathematician before the principle of numbers. He knows that no exercise of human will, no personal opinion or desire, will change one iota or divert in the slightest degree the operation of the rules of that principle; therefore he cannot outline the solution of the problem according to his own personal dictation. He also knows that exact obedience to those undeviating rules will enable him to arrive at the inevitably perfect solution to any problem he may be engaged in solving. This must be the attitude of the student of Christian Science towards that divine Principle of which the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, has said in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 112), "From the infinite One in Christian Science comes one Principle and its infinite idea, and with this infinitude come spiritual rules, laws, and their demonstration, which, like the great Giver, are 'the same yesterday, and today, and forever.' "

The acme of scientific humility was expressed in the words of Jesus the Christ: "I can of mine own self do nothing," and, "The Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works"—words of transcendent interest and value! It is the Father, not my Father, indicating the universal nature of the divine Principle, Love, its impartial government of all existence. "The Father that dwelleth in me." This indicates how completely the consciousness of Jesus was the reflection of Principle; how completely any belief of a self apart from Love had been erased. This enabled him also to say: "What things soever he [the Father] doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise." This is the perfection of reflection. An understanding of divine Principle demonstrates that Principle.

What startling and ineradicable proof of his scientific humility, his understanding of the Father and the nature of the Father as divine Love, Jesus gave. Before his pure reflection of Spirit and its beneficent power the distortions of sense testimony disappeared—every material claim to power, every so-called law of matter, was annulled. When the Pharisees and Sadducees questioned his authority or tried to trick him into answers that would incriminate him before their law, his reflection of omniscience gave answers which annulled their arguments and silenced their tongues. His consciousness of his own spiritual being as the pure reflection of Love enabled him to pass unharmed through the midst of his enemies when, in hatred of his purity, they had led him to the top of the hill from whence they "might cast him down headlong." Innumerable are the evidences he gave of the scientific humility which knew no selfhood apart from God, no power apart from Principle.

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