ONE of the early lessons of Christian Science is that man exists at the standpoint of perfection, the exact image of God. The practice of this Science involves conscious identification of oneself with this perfection. Christian Science practice, then, does not start with a sick person; nor does it start out to do something to a person. "The starting-point of divine Science," writes Mary Baker Eddy in her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 275), "is that God, Spirit, is All-in-all, and that there is no other might nor Mind,—that God is Love, and therefore He is divine Principle."
Christian Science teaches that God and man are distinct in the Science of being, though they are forever one as cause and effect. Hence man's perfection is eternally established and maintained by God. Paul wrote (Acts 17:28), "In him we live, and move, and have our being." So in maintaining His own harmony, God coincidently maintains the harmony and well-being of His beloved son. This is not accomplished as two processes. It exists as one spiritual fact. Thus the student of Christian Science begins to reason from perfect God and perfect man as a present fact. Such a positive standpoint, with the dominion and freedom it includes, eliminates the problem as a basis for work or as an object to be watched in the work. The student joyfully identifies himself, not with a problem, but with the facts of being. He claims abundance and opportunity as his own. And he recognizes that beliefs about material inheritance, background, education, environment—whether they claim to be his in abundance or tragically lacking—can never change the spiritual facts of being into their apparent opposites, nor divorce him from the realization that these facts are forever included in his God-constituted and God-sustained selfhood. The facts of being remain untouched by the vagaries and distortions of the carnal mind. Hence in Christian Science the student does not start out to recapture his health or to regain his joy. Rather, he handles the error which says they can be lost.
To know that all is Mind, Love, is a most potent realization in the practice of Christian Science. With it comes the freeing awareness that there is no matter, no disease. The realization of perfect being now is the healing. There is no matter to change, to watch, to interest or to frighten us—no matter to hide God's presence or delay His power. All is Mind and its harmonious, spiritual expression.
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