In his Sermon on the Mount Christ Jesus said (Matt. 6:22, 23): "The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness." Christian Science reveals that to keep the eye single is to know God, Spirit, as the only cause of all that really exists and man as His perfect child, made in His image and likeness. For right reasoning we must keep this starting point always clearly before our thought. All that we know of the earthly career of Jesus shows unmistakably that he was ever conscious of the oneness and allness of God and of his own inseparability from Him. All that he said and did was based on the spiritual understanding of God's omnipotence and of his unity with Him, and this enabled him to accomplish his great lifework.
Christian Science further teaches that there is no Scriptural authority for accepting a material as well as a spiritual basis for life and thought and that when we regard both Spirit and matter as real we are building on false foundations. The Bible contains ample authority for the teaching of God's oneness and allness. Frequently throughout its pages are to be found references to God as one and as all. In the very first chapter of Genesis, God is repeatedly mentioned as the only creator, and in Ecclesiastes we read (4:8), "There is one alone, and there is not a second." We cannot arrive at logical conclusions in Christian Science by attempting to work from two bases of thought any more than we can in mathematics. There is one fundamental Truth, and strict adherence to it is absolutely essential for right results. Thinking of ourself as mortal and from this basis striving to understand and use this Science in solving our problems is attempting to keep Spirit under the control of matter, which is an impossibility and must end in confusion and frustration. The determination to do this has delayed the progress of mankind Spiritward throughout the history of civilization.
As we claim our sonship with God, the one Mind, and know that spiritual understanding is man's because he reflects divine intelligence, and not because of any personal ability of his own, we manifest the all-knowing Mind and know what we need to know when we need to know it. Since every idea of Mind is dependent upon Mind alone, man, God's idea, is always at one with Mind and manifests intelligence, health, perfect faculties and functions, and all right ideas. This man has never been, nor can he ever be, separated from God, his divine Principle.
