Traditional religious teaching and human experience stemming from it have led mankind to believe that the way of progress must be one of suffering that suffering must necessarily accompany one's spiritual progress. But the concept of suffering can only be associated with the belief that man is material and mortal, never with the consciousness of one infinite spiritual being. No one actually wants to suffer, and spiritual reasoning shows us that it is not in the nature of divine and infinite Love to cause or require suffering.
God, good, being the only cause, is expressed in that which is wholly and eternally good. Christian Science therefore declares that the error of suffering should end as one recognizes and accepts the forever perfection of man as the divine expression and image of God's being. The truth of man's eternal at-one-ment with God is the standpoint from which the human belief in progress through suffering may be rejected and finally destroyed. Referring to this, Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writes in her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 23): "That God's wrath should be vented upon His beloved Son, is divinely unnatural. Such a theory is man-made. The atonement is a hard problem in theology, but its scientific explanation is, that suffering is an error of sinful sense which Truth destroys, and that eventually both sin and suffering will fall at the feet of everlasting Love."
Truth, therefore, in its unfoldment of reality reveals the present perfection of man. It reveals that man does not progress from the imperfect to the perfect. It declares that perfection is the permanent reality of existence. Truth disassociates man from all connection with materiality. The truth of being shows that impurity, dishonesty, envy, hatred, and animosity are impersonal beliefs, that they have no place in the divine Mind and are therefore not identified with man. They are seen as beliefs of sinful sense. When their falsity is seen and they no longer find expression in the conscious thinking of the individual, the basis for suffering is gone.
