GOD'S universe with its scientific order is becoming more apparent to men in these times of research, invention, and religious progress. As human thought breaks away from false beliefs about matter, time, and space, wider spheres of perception and action are unfolding. This earth is not the horizon of knowledge. Wisdom about the heaven's hosts is multiplying. Deeper attention is being given to the spiritual account of creation in the first chapter of Genesis.
As the student carefully searches this initial chapter of the Holy Bible and its scientific interpretation in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, two facts stand out which are appropriate to the present space age. First, God, supreme Mind, is the sole creator; then, with the conception of each idea there is the launching of it into eternal purpose.
God's creating of ideas of existence, if without accompanying purpose and control of them for eternity, would be fruitless functioning. There must be continuing usefulness for all that God brings forth. Since creative Mind is the origin of the universe, it must also be the ultimate, the all-inclusive. This implies that ideas emanating from the divine Mind eternally remain within the orbits of God's intention for them.
Every true identity from the most minute to immensity lives and moves in accord with God's law of changeless perfection. The law of spiritual attraction makes impossible any power that could pull these emanations out of their God-given circuits, as permanent parts of the endless universe of good. Their status is fixed and cannot be invaded. Error could not live in the atmosphere of Spirit, but God's ideas drink in its holy essence and thrive upon it. Launched successfully in Mind's ultimate purpose for it, every divine idea keeps an unswerving course. Throughout all aeons it persists in its God-ordained and directed career.
The propulsion of every divine concept along the paths of Mind, the reaches of infinity, is accomplished by the energies of Spirit. These forces are indestructible, never permitting the work of the creator to fall short of its goal, to lack essential sustenance, nor to be nullified. The divine order throughout the scope of Mind never reaches a final stage, but ever unfolds the circle of celestial events.
Mind's launching of its ideas is never experimental nor faulty. The first chapter of Genesis states in no uncertain terms (verse 31), "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." This accomplishment has lasted from beyond the history of humanity till now and has within it the elements of endless continuance. Since the earth and moon are unswervingly kept in their courses, is it strange to assume that man, God's paramount work, must be held in forever unfoldment of the divine dominion bestowed upon him?
The Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mrs. Eddy, in writing of Mind's control of all that really exists, says (Miscellaneous Writings, pp. 82, 83), "This Mind, then, is not subject to growth, change, or diminution, but is the divine intelligence, or Principle, of all real being; holding man forever in the rhythmic round of unfolding bliss, as a living witness to and perpetual idea of inexhaustible good." In this statement of the divine origin and ultimate of man is indicated the predestination of his forever unity with God.
God's orbits are not limited channels wherein His ideas are confined, but divinely outlined opportunities for reflection of Mind's infinitude. Scientific security of procedure permeates their atmosphere. Mind cannot send forth its ideas into surroundings unlike itself in essence, to wander erratically through time, but steers them precisely through eternity.
The Master, Christ Jesus, spoke of his spiritual identity as coming from the Father, doing always those things that pleased the Father, and returning to the Father. God's offspring do not dash headlong into self-destruction, but move in accord with their creator's foreknowing. They cannot stray into misguided paths, because they are never separated from the will of God. The first chapter of Genesis is as true an account of creation today as when it was first written.
Today's attempts to launch vehicles into new scopes of exploration signify closer approach to discoveries of the divine order. But neither modern inventions nor human propulsion into space can of themselves sufficiently interpret the infinite. Unknown heights, depths, and distances of matter can never reveal primordial Truth. Only divine Science really can traverse immensity and report the presence of the kingdom of heaven throughout all space. Through rarefaction of human consciousness thought is lifted into the atmosphere of the primitive and ultimate, the eternal all.
St. John on the Isle of Patmos wrote of seeing "a new heaven and a new earth" and of what was going on in them (Rev. 21:1). He evidently beheld more of the nature of reality than human knowledge through the later centuries has been able to explain. And Mrs. Eddy, in speaking of her discovery of divine Science, writes (Retrospection and Introspection, pp. 27, 28), "The divine hand led me into a new world of light and Life, a fresh universe—old to God, but new to His 'little one.'" Later she amplified this statement with the following prophecy (Pulpit and Press, p. 4): "Who lives in good, lives also in God,— lives in all Life, through all space."
Humanity has been trained for centuries to believe that man has fallen away from God into mortality. There he is supposed to move in orbits of his own making, experiencing uncertainty, failure, sin, suffering, limitation in every direction, and death. All this is false assumption, for there can be no existence apart from God, who is infinite Life. Christian Science has come to restore to all men the realization of the ever-continuing coexistence of God and man. Giving heed to this revelation of Truth, human consciousness wakes to the possibility of moving beyond the atmosphere of matter into the awareness of spiritual existence.
Recognition of man's existence in accord with Mind's purpose for him embraces humanity step by step in this truth's own demonstration of immortality. The awakened human thought will find itself released from so-called laws of matter, mortal mind and evil, from the seeming pull of animal magnetism and the hypnotism of aggressive mental suggestion, and held in laws of supreme Life and Love.
An illustration of this may be found in the life of the Master when he walked upon the sea. Because Jesus knew and accepted the supremacy of Spirit embracing the universe and man, he was released from the false assumptions of mortal mind and held in the divine demonstration. Neither the human Jesus nor the Christ, his real self, sank in the waves. Jesus was not left a victim of the accepted laws of gravitation, danger, or destruction. The human was not ignored, neglected, or abandoned to death. As Jesus trusted the truth of man, held in Life's ultimate intention for him, he was kept with the Christ in security, dominion, and freedom.
How undeviating was the Master's way divinely and humanly! Because he knew, and had resort to, his true selfhood as the Son of God, his human experience triumphed over every attempt of error to involve him in discord or disaster. This spiritual wisdom prevented him from making mistakes, from wasting time in fruitless pursuits, from failing in his highest mission. Always the truth of man's moving within the scope of God's purpose carried him to the summit of demonstration over all material sense. Nothing could rob him of his divine birthright or destiny. He came to show us how to follow the same purposeful path.
Waiting at our doorsteps are spiritual methods of existence, experiences evolving from infinity, freedom rising from an understanding of matter's unreality. Today offers men opportunities to lay off many earth weights, to exchange ancient beliefs for spiritual realities. The potency of divine Science is expressed through spiritual laws. As true ideas which come to the surface through study and revelation are proven, the vanguard of divinely prepared scientific exploration reaches beyond materiality's atmosphere to touch the realm of immortality.
The earnest student of mathematics regards arithmetic as only the first step in his study and practice. So the Christian Scientist aspires to achieve and demonstrate more and more of the calculus of the infinite. Every new view of divine order enables him more clearly to know his identity as the son of God. Then the struggle of following self-outlined paths begins to cease along with their disillusionments, disappointments, and thwarting limitations. Instead, there glows the presence of divine Love, which has never left man to make his own life, but has planned and preserved the functioning of the kingdom of heaven within him forever.
To be aware of divine purpose, guarding and guiding man's progress, enables men to cease believing in chance, human will, evil destiny, or personal sense as the arbiters of anyone's experience. It brings a deep peace, confidence, and receptivity to divine control, which works out far grander achievement than mortals can possibly accomplish. Taking away fear, hopelessness, or resignation to fate, such awareness reveals the glory of celestial existence here and everywhere.
Man, moving in God's orbit of ultimate intention for him, is never alone. He is conscious of Principle's activity with him; he feels the animation of immortality throughout his identity; he reflects divine purpose as the innate pulsing of his being. He is conscious with omniscience, active with omnipotence, and existent with omnipresence.
