How many times has anyone reading this article heard someone say, "Well, I'll believe it when I see it." When the nobleman came to Christ Jesus to ask him to heal his child, the Master said (John 4:48), "Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe."
In Christian Science we learn that true seeing is never experienced through matter, through the material eye. It will be clearly understood that this is so when it is remembered that God, Spirit, made all and made man in His image and likeness. Having created all, God saw that it was good. Certainly Spirit does not see with material eyes, and man, made in God's likeness, cannot by means of matter see what God made. As a natural sequence of this fact, neither can there be any matter to see. According to Christian Science, material man or any other object of material creation is nothing more than supposition. True seeing is a spiritual experience in regard both to the discerning and to the thing discerned.
Coming to this conclusion, one may ask, "But what of the beauties of nature, the animals, the hills, the shining waters, and the heavens in all their glory?" Mary Baker Eddy answers this question in "Miscellaneous Writings." She says on page 87: "In our immature sense of spiritual things, let us say of the beauties of the sensuous universe: 'I love your promise; and shall know, some time, the spiritual reality and substance of form, light, and color, of what I now through you discern dimly; and knowing this, I shall be satisfied. Matter is a frail conception of mortal mind; and mortal mind is a poorer representative of the beauty, grandeur, and glory of the immortal Mind.'"
Matter, being the "frail conception of mortal mind," is in every way mutable and perishable. Since it is no part of God's creation, matter is not supported by His law. Therefore, that which may seem good to the material senses is quite likely to become, through chance and change and the mortal beliefs of the adverse operation of time, something worthless or destructive. By means of Christian Science, humanity learns to rise above this temporary, false sense of creation and discern the real creation, which God declared to be very good.
Spiritual sense, which enables humanity to discern God's creation, is as indestructible as all else emanating from the infinite All. Clear perception has been bestowed on His children by the heavenly Father in order that they may know the wonders of His universe. The manifestation of the things of the Spirit, which are good in all their varied expressions, will be found present in experience as they are seen or understood; and included in experience will be the ability to see clearly according to human standards.
There has to be a longing to see what God has made before it may be seen, and there must be a purification of the human self before the capacity to discern His creation is demonstrated. Of this process of purification Mrs. Eddy says in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (pp. 323, 324): "Willingness to become as a little child and to leave the old for the new, renders thought receptive of the advanced idea. Gladness to leave the false landmarks and joy to see them disappear,—this disposition helps to precipitate the ultimate harmony. The purification of sense and self is a proof of progress. 'Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.'"
When the resolution to turn from the: material sense of things to the spiritual is undertaken, the strengthening and healing power of Christian Science may be called upon for help and will not fail. One by one those things which are not of God and therefore are unreal, such as hatred, envy, or covetousness, will fall away before the facts of Spirit. Then the qualities which are the reflection of Spirit will appear and will enable one to discern that all mankind may come to share the Father's abundant supply. Compassion, generosity, and right desires are evidence of improved vision, which will lead to more harmonious relationships of all kinds, in the home, in business, and in political affairs. True seeing gives one the ability to discern the real man where a sick mortal has seemed to be, and this will have the effect of healing the sufferer. Healing followed Jesus' clear discernment of the real man where, according to sense testimony, there appeared a suffering or sinful mortal.
The writer has experienced healing of impaired vision through gaining a desire for a clearer view of what God has given to man, His likeness. During the Second World War, she felt that she should give her services to the war effort as a draftsman, since she had had training in such work and draftsmen were much needed in some fields. The work was very demanding and the hours were long, and after a year she found herself unable to continue because of eyestrain.
She could have avoided this experience with eye trouble if she had worked correctly as a Christian Scientist. However, when she heard it said that the work being done would ruin one's eyes, she did not, either mentally or orally, deny the false suggestion that right doing could harm one and assert the truth that all right activity comes under God's law and is therefore protected and maintained by Him.
For some time she could not see to read, and for a while, until she could read a sentence or two a day, she had help from a Christian Science practitioner. After that, she continued the work herself, and during this time, before the demonstration of the power of Truth to overcome all inharmonious conditions was made, she was elected Reader in the Christian Science Society of which she was a member.
She felt that a Reader should present a normal sense of well-being, and to her, wearing glasses was not doing so. In the short time before her term of office was to begin, she proceeded to claim that she could see all good, which God had given her, His child, to see. She looked only for the things of Spirit in all those with whom she came in contact. She knew that it was the Word of Truth that she was to read; that it was of God, and therefore she was aware of it; His Word was good, and God had given it to her. The earnest endeavor to do what God had given her to do, to discern what He had made, resulted in her going onto the platform able to read without glasses. That change in conditions from inharmony to harmony has stayed with her through quite a number of intervening years.
Paul makes it clear that not through matter but through spiritual discernment do we see reality, the things God has made, when he writes (I Cor. 2:14), "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."
One of the rewards which growth in spiritual discernment brings to the student of Christian Science is the greater protection from evil that comes from recognizing more surely his place in the kingdom of heaven, where the things of Spirit are seen. Spiritual unfoldment brings increased poise, wholeness, harmony, and those things which show forth the divine energies of Spirit. The truths discerned by the student protect him from suggestions of mortal mind and help to raise all those with whom he comes in contact to a higher sense of the individuality God bestows. Thus the student gets a clearer glimpse of those things which we now discern but dimly, but which we shall know as we continue to seek them.
