Love, all-powerful and ever present, is one of the synonyms used for Deity in Christian Science. Students of this Science become aware of taking a great stride forward as they begin consciously to accept Love as the whole, instead of merely as an attribute, of God. The reason is not far to seek. Only through understanding that Love is God can human consciousness be lifted above the fears and forebodings which are usually associated with a less adequate concept. The true idea of Love as God acts through spiritual understanding in human affairs as a freedom-bringing savior. It lifts the weight of responsibility, placing it where it belongs, namely, with the cause and creator of all spiritual attributes and qualities.
In her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mary Baker Eddy says (pp. 319, 320), "A misplaced word changes the sense and misstates the Science of the Scriptures, as, for instance, to name Love as merely an attribute of God; but we can by special and proper capitalization speak of the love of Love, meaning by that what the beloved disciple meant in one of his epistles when he said, 'God is love.'" As the image and likeness of God, man reflects God, reflects Love. Reflection is never the original, never the cause of that which is reflected. In the Revised Version of the Bible I John 4:19 is rendered. "We love, because he first loved us." Christ Jesus, who best knew how to reflect divine Love, taught, "My Father is greater than I," and demonstrated it.
Left to its finite, faulty conception, unsupported by the spiritual understanding of Love and its omnipotence, human consciousness sometimes finds the effort to love even its dearest friends an overwhelming task. Then it fears to enlarge its borders and begins to draw within narrower and narrower boundaries. And when faced with the edict of the Sermon on the Mount to love its enemies, it pronounces this an unreasonable demand, quite impractical of fulfillment. Christian Science, with its explanation of the truth of being, reveals loving as an activity of the divine Principle, Love, the understanding of which acts as a master key opening up hitherto inaccessible places and setting the captive thought free to enjoy and demonstrate the boundlessness of Love.
