Christian Science teaches that the real man has a spiritual personality, which is the reflection of the one infinite Person, God. This good and perfect personality is the direct opposite of the human sense of personality. Science shows that personality, humanly conceived, has nothing to do with the real man. Mary Baker Eddy says in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 337), "Material personality is not realism; it is not the reflection or likeness of Spirit, the perfect God." This statement is based upon the truth, revealed by the Scriptures, that God, infinite Spirit, Mind, Truth, created man in His likeness and that therefore man must be spiritual, perfect, eternal. The real man, then, cannot be a mortal; he must be an immortal, spiritual idea. And because God is individual, infinite personality, His idea expresses His individuality or personality, which is the very antipode of corporeal personality.
The belief in human personality is the basis of many of the problems which beset mankind. For example, the unhappiness, anger, resentment, selfishness, and envy that rise up to torment one are the result of accepting personal sense as real, instead of seeing man as God's spiritual image. Mrs. Eddy saw the need of getting rid of this sense of personality. And in "Miscellaneous Writings" she says (p. 310), "To impersonalize scientifically the material sense of existence—rather than cling to personality —is the lesson of to-day." The quicker we learn this lesson, the sooner we shall reap the wonderful benefits it brings.
"To impersonalize scientifically the material sense of existence," one starts with the fact that the true sense of existence is spiritual, and he goes on to realize that God's creation consists of spiritual ideas. Thus he replaces the personalized sense of material existence with the truth of Love's spiritual kingdom, peopled with God's children. In this kingdom there are only spiritual individualities, each expressing God in the individual way of His appointing.
