INQUIRIES regarding the nature of power and where it may be found are generally answered with the assertion that it is a material force or energy outside of men; that men are endowed with only a small proportion of the total sum of power. Even though it might be agreed that there is such a thing as spiritual and mental power, this phase of power would be largely considered as subject to laws of matter and as operating only after the demands of material laws had been met or set aside. It would be maintained that mental power is confined to and operates through a material brain, healing power through material medicine, action or motive power through the laws of mechanics. In fact, power of any nature, according to popular belief, is largely based upon matter as the source of its activity. The Bible, however, is filled with statements that power is derived from God, Spirit, that man and the universe are spiritual, and that man has dominion over all the earth. It also states that "the flesh [matter] profiteth nothing."
It is clear that the above propositions— one that matter is power, the other that Spirit is power—are opposed. The belief that power is material is a departure from the entire purpose and pattern of the Bible, which insists that Spirit is the only power. This is illustrated in picturesque language by Isaiah, who warned the men of Israel not to depend upon Egypt for help, upon horses, men, or nations for strength, and thus fail to rely on God. The prophet declared (Isa. 31:3), "Now the Egyptians are men, and not God; and their horses flesh, and not spirit." Elijah also perceived that power does not reside in what appear to the material senses to be the violent forces of nature when it became clear to him that the Lord was not in the wind, the earthquake, or the fire, but in the still, small voice of spiritual perception or consciousness.
A careful study of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, discloses a complete conformity of Christian Science with the Bible teaching that God, Spirit, is power and that matter has nothing whatever to do with it. Christian Science teaches how spiritual power may be translated into terms of human comprehension and utilized for human needs. Because God is omnipotent Mind, or Spirit, and not a physical form, His universe, including man, emanating from Mind, must be mental, not physical. In what way or manner, then, can Mind's omnipotence be evidenced other than as Mind's activity, or reflection; that is to say, through the conscious identity which is man? Since man emanates from Mind, and is Mind's reflection, all his experiences are essentially subjective. This subjectivity, originating in infinite Mind, is expressed in spiritual outline, form, color, beauty, and the grand activity of harmonious ideas, which constitute spiritual consciousness. These concepts are as vivid to real consciousness as the supposedly tangible objects of matter are to illusive material sense. Corporeal sense is itself an illusion, and its objects are the phenomena of this illusion.
