When one considers the many years that the mortal body has been studied, analyzed, and operated upon, is it any wonder mortals question why there are still so many diseases and discords apparent in the world today? Christian Science answers this question with absolute conviction. In the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, this arresting statement is made (p. 262): "The foundation of mortal discord is a false sense of man's origin." Our Leader also explains how this false sense can be overcome. She says (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 181), "Mortals will lose their sense of mortality—disease, sickness, sin, and death—in the proportion that they gain the sense of man's spiritual preexistence as God's child; as the offspring of good, and not of God's opposite,—evil, or a fallen man." The word "preexistence" refers to the fact that man is as eternal as God—without beginning and end. He is not touched by the false beliefs of so-called material existence.
How vitally important it is, then, that we lose the false sense of man's origin and gain the truth of his "spiritual preexistence as God's child." By the understanding of what Christian Science teaches, we are doubly blessed. First, by knowing man's spiritual origin "as the offspring of good," one learns to see himself as a spiritual idea— the image and likeness of God, as the Bible states. Secondly, by recognizing man's origin as God's child, one can more readily perceive the unreality of the belief in heredity, with all its fleshly ills and limitations, and thus gain the true sense of his divine heritage.
Jesus was convinced of man's spiritual origin as God's child, for he said (Matt. 23:9): "Call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven," and (Matt. 5:48), "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." As one ponders these quickening spiritual commands and gains their deeper significance, he awakens in some measure to the fact that although the mortal body seems to be his very own, it is not his true being. Thereby fear of this mortal body begins to lessen, and with greater faith and understanding one is enabled to demonstrate his God-given dominion over all material beliefs.
