In the Preface to the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mary Baker Eddy writes (p. vii), "The time for thinkers has come." This call is not a call to mere intellectualism. It is a call to spiritual awakening, to purified, enlightened thought. Everyone thinks. One does not live without thought. True knowing is true living. The necessity is to learn how to think or know in its truest sense.
This, Christian Science is teaching its followers to do. With its logical, scientific explanation of God and His laws it not only satisfies reason, but gives to its adherents a demonstrable understanding of how, through right thinking, spiritual law may be beneficially applied in human affairs. This Science discloses the mental nature of all things, the divine nature of all that is real and good, and the erroneous nature of all that is not good. Through it we learn that man is not a material, limited mortal, but a spiritual, unlimited being, reflecting the all-knowing Mind, which is God.
Our need is to choose thoughts wisely and to use them intelligently. To do this requires that we acknowledge and claim as our own man's inherent spiritual dominion, and therefore his freedom from every phase of false mental influence. Each idea of God has its own indissoluble connection with God and reflects Him. Thoughts unfolding from God, divine Mind, are replete in goodness, wisdom, and power; and as we claim and use these thoughts, they guide human experience into health, harmony, and achievement. Since the infinite storehouse of Mind's perfect, unlimited ideas is open to all, excellence and variety of individual thinking can in no wise be limited. Therefore, in reality, no one can do better or broader thinking for us than we can do for ourselves.
