A Short while ago one well qualified spoke to a sociology class of university students. In the question period which followed, a student asked seriously, "How do you know that there is a God?" to which the speaker replied: "I don't. If I did, it would take all the romance and mystery out of life." A few weeks later, the Christian Science Committee on Publication for that state addressed the same group and in his talk clearly enunciated the nature of God as revealed by Mary Baker Eddy. It was apparent from the attitude of the students that this time the question of whether or not there is a God had not been left unanswered.
A Christian Scientist who attended these talks was afflicted several months later with pain which made every movement extremely difficult. He declared the truth that God is Spirit and that man, His reflection, is spiritual, as Christian Science teaches. At first there was not much relief. Then one day he recognized that what appeared to him as pain was only the evidence of his ignorance of what God and man are. He had been reading the following passage in the textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy (p. 390): "It is our ignorance of God, the divine Principle, which produces apparent discord, and the right understanding of Him restores harmony." He saw in what appeared as a physical condition a challenge to prove this truth.
A dictionary defines "proof" as follows: "Properly speaking, proof is the effect or result of evidence; evidence is the medium of proof." He reasoned that the so-called evidence of the physical senses, testifying to pain, in no way gives proof of the omnipresence and omnipotence of God. The erroneous condition, then, must be mortal mind's evidence of its own ignorance of God. But ignorance is no part of man's consciousness. Man is ever conscious of the things of God. The Scientist saw that his need, then, was to acknowledge God as the one divine Mind and his consciousness as its reflection. This realization would destroy the suggestion of mortal mind that he was ignorant of God, and the proof of harmony in his human experience would be evidenced in proportion to his spiritualized thought.
