In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mary Baker Eddy gives seven synonymous terms for God—Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, and Love. While these synonyms are interchangeable, each has its distinctive nature. The salient characteristic of Principle is that it is provable.
Principle always bears evidence of itself or manifests itself. The word principle means primal cause; and there can be no cause without effect. The principle of mathematics, for instance, could not exist without its manifestation of numbers. Neither can God, divine Principle or Love, exist without His expression, man and the universe. We should have no proof of God, Love, were it not that Love is expressed in manifold forms of loveliness and grace.
Because a principle is provable, it is likewise infallible. A variable principle is no principle. Divine Principle, God, is changeless Love. It is therefore unfailing and dependable, and its idea, or expression or outcome, is equally so. Because the principle of mathematics is unvarying and unerring, its numbers are so; and because Love, or divine Principle, is eternally perfect, Love's image, man, is constant in his perfection.
