"The standard of perfection was originally God and man." This profound statement made by Mary Baker Eddy is found in her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 470). Following the statement she asks this searching question: "Has God taken down His own standard, and has man fallen?"
Christian Science teaches that God is Mind. Mind is fully conscious of its own perfection and completeness. Since Mind, the great First Cause, is perfect, its effect, man, must also be perfect and complete. Mind expresses itself in its entirety, and it expresses only what it includes. Man is the full and complete expression of this Mind. Since in the pure and holy Mind, God, there cannot be found inharmony, fear, pain, disease. or sin, these suggestions must be illusions and cannot be found in man, the expression of Mind's holiness. Accordingly, man knows purity, health, goodness, strength, trust, dominion, love. Man knows in a degree only what Mind knows. This completeness and perfection is the standard of Life. It is the only true standard.
Mortals are the inverted image of Deity, the outcome of the Adam-dream. Then whatever may be the standard of mortals, it is a distorted, discordant assumption without fixity, permanence, or reality. Illusive standards permeate false theology and mortal mind ethics.
