"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.
