"Christian Science refutes everything that is not a postulate of the divine Principle, God," declares Mary Baker Eddy on page 364 of "Miscellaneous Writings." And a little farther on in the same paragraph she continues, "It stands on this Scriptural platform: that He made all that was made, and it is good, reflects the divine Mind, is governed by it; and that nothing apart from this Mind, one God, is self-created or evolves the universe." The first chapter of the Bible contains these spiritual postulates (Gen. 1:1,27,31): "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth;" "God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him;" and, "God saw every thing that he' had made, and, behold, it was very good."
God, divine Principle, is infinite and perfect and knows only His own spiritual, perfect, and complete reflection, man and the universe. The eternal fact is that spiritual man abides in harmony, moves in harmony, and never falls from or ceases to express harmony. He manifests all the qualities of divine Principle, including perception and comprehension, and hence knows his own perfection as the reflection of God. Man, therefore, is happy and content in his spiritual being. He has no doubt about his inseparable relationship to God. Man as God makes him does not have to be treated metaphysically or prayed for in order to become aware of his gloriously spiritual nature as the expression of Principle. He is because God is, and he reflects that which God knows.
Mankind, the false, human concept of man, however, does not understand man's forever true and happy origin as the child of God. Mortal man, the counterfeit of the divine image and likeness of God, is harassed by ignorance, fear, and misconceptions regarding true being. This so-called man continues to be disturbed until human thought leaves its belief in a material basis and awakens to the spiritual sense of the everlasting perfection of being. Prayer, or Christian Science treatment, is the spiritual means of awakening human thought.
Christian Science treatment, or prayer, is the declaration and realization of that which is spiritually true. It is the denial of the testimony of the five corporeal senses. These senses claim the presence and reality of sin, disease, and death, and constitute the thought which sees man as wholly material. Such testimony being false, it can and must be denied and superseded by spiritual sense, which knows man to be the image of God.
Mortal mind argues that while God may have created man perfect, he has fallen from that state of perfection; hence that man, fallen and imperfect, must be healed, be made perfect. It also argues that the road to perfection is laborious, and that mankind's ability to progress is often not equal to the evil forces resisting its progress. It is reassuring to note, however, that these arguments admit a possibility of ultimate perfection. Mortal mind usually concedes that mankind may become perfect at some future time. The nowness of man's perfection is what it denies.
Christian Science faces these false beliefs with the correct statement of the spiritual fact that man, the child of the one perfect God, is perfect now. Man has not fallen, but constantly manifests wholeness and spiritual well-being. This man of God's creating does not after so many treatments or so many prayers become perfect or recognize his perfection, nor does he need to be healed. God's child ever knows his present and eternal well-being.
Treatment in Christian Science begins with the spiritual fact of perfect God and perfect man and from this basis denies the human illusions which contradict the spiritual fact. Thus in ineffable tenderness the Christ Science comes to where the human mind is in belief and lifts it step by step to an ever fuller realization of the perfection of God and His creation. Our Leader says (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 127): "When a hungry heart petitions the divine Father-Mother God for bread, it is not given a stone,—but more grace, obedience, and love. If this heart, humble and trustful, faithfully asks divine Love to feed it with the bread of heaven, health, holiness, it will be conformed to a fitness to receive the answer to its desire; then will flow into it the 'river of His pleasure,' the tributary of divine Love, and great growth in Christian Science will follow,—even that joy which finds one's own in another's good." He who comes to Christian Science as the result of an earnest desire to spiritualize thought can awaken to the perfection of being and be healed.
He who feels the distress of mortal mind may wonder in his ignorance of spiritual facts why he is sick or sinful or sorrowing. The Christian Science practitioner will endeavor to turn thought away from the arguments which say he is a sick or discordant mortal to the spiritual fact set forth in the first chapter of Genesis, that man is the perfect child of God.
Man's every activity is in conformity with the harmonious law of God, good. His health and happiness are permanent because of his relationship to his divine Principle. Nothing in his being moves too fast or too slowly, and there is no impurity to accumulate; his being includes no pressure, strain, or stagnancy, for man reflects the harmonious action of Principle. Thus his freedom and joy are unbounded, his progress is uninterrupted. Man has no cravings, no unsatisfied desires; he is untrammeled and unfallen, because he is God's spiritual, perfect, complete idea.
Ignorance of the truth of being is mental darkness. When a light is turned on in a dark room, darkness is not healed, but is dissipated, for it is only the absence of light. Likewise, when the light of Truth is turned upon so-called sin, disease, and death, they are not in reality healed, but, rather, are demonstrated to be only the illusory absence of the facts of man's harmonious being. Christian Science does not heal matter, because matter is unreal, and nothing unreal needs healing. Christian Science treatment, or prayer, demonstrates in human affairs the truth that evil is nothing. Animal magnetism, mesmerism, hypnotism, aggressive mental suggestion, malpractice, and so on are names given to that which argues against the allness of God and the perfection of man. Since they are but arguments, they are, like darkness, only the seeming absence of the light of Truth.
As we approach each problem from the standpoint of the spiritual postulate, the perfection of God, man, and the universe, we shall uncover the argument which needs to be destroyed. A trained musician knows what needs to be corrected in the work of an amateur because of his knowledge of the fundamentals of music. To correct mistakes he does not study inharmony, but harmony. So it is with the Christian Scientist; as he grasps the truth of man's harmonious being, he annuls the claims of mortal mind that man is sick or sinful. From the standpoint of perfect God and perfect man error is clearly seen for what it is—darkness, a lie, which disappears before the truth.
A banker, not a student of Christian Science, telephoned a Christian Scientist one day and said that auditors had for several nights been going over the books at his bank looking for a certain mistake that they knew had been made. The banker wondered if Christian Science could help in such a case. He was assured that it could, and treatment was accepted. Very soon the telephone rang again, and the happy report was that the error had been found. "How did you do it?" was the interested query.
The Scientist replied, in effect: "The problem was approached by us from different standpoints. You were trying to find out the error by searching for it. Christian Science teaches that error is uncovered by the realization of the truth of being. I declared what was true about man as the reflection of God, unerring Mind, and when this truth was sufficiently realized, it uncovered and destroyed the error that man is material, liable to make mistakes."
The Christian Scientist does not accept error as reality, but destroys its claims in the degree he comprehends the eternal perfection of God, man, and the universe. Christian Science treatment denies the reality of matter, which God, infinite Mind, does not cognize, and affirms as everlastingly true the spiritual creation which God sees and knows. Mortal mind sees its own false concepts, but it cannot see man, and its blind misconception of creation and man cannot change the everlasting facts.
When Jesus said (Matt. 11:28), "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden," he was extending an invitation to come to the Christ, which reveals the perfect man of God's creating, not the imperfect mortal cognized by the material senses. Those who are weary and heavy of heart can gain the spiritual understanding of God and man if they will accept the spiritual postulates set forth in the first chapter of Genesis and reiterated by Jesus. The effect of this understanding is harmony and peace.
Hear Jesus' promise to those who accept his invitation (Matt. 11:29): "Ye shall find rest unto your souls."
