Man, made in the image and likeness of God, has been compared by Mrs. Eddy to a reflection in a mirror. "Your mirrored reflection is your own image or likeness," she says on page 515 of Science and Health; and she explains: "Now compare man before the mirror to his divine Principle, God. Call the mirror divine Science, and call man the reflection. Then note how true, according to Christian Science, is the reflection to its original. As the reflection of yourself appears in the mirror, so you, being spiritual, are the reflection of God."
In considering the idea of reflection, it is helpful to recall that the image in the mirror does not gradually take on the aspect of the original in front of the mirror. It is instantaneously complete and does not take time to become so. So it is with man, the spiritual likeness of the one Spirit, God. His identity as the manifest expression of his Maker is not fragmentary but entire. If it appears to human sense that this reflection lacks definiteness or fails to depict clearly the perfect nature of his perfect creator, let it be perceived that the deficiency is in the human seeing, not in the original or in its reflection. Spiritual discernment sees with clarity and distinctness the perfect outline, which faithfully reproduces the original; and the degree of one's ability to demonstrate perfect discernment determines his success in healing mankind.
Christianly scientific understanding reveals health as the reflection of spiritual wholeness, abundance as the manifestation of divine allness, joy as the radiance of Soul, satisfaction and success as the evidence of Principle, peace as the outcome of Love, and present perfection as the expression of infinite and eternal good. We can all agree that health, abundance, joy, satisfaction, success, peace, and perfection constitute a state of heavenly harmony. And in no way is this state of heavenly harmony dependent on or restricted by a sense of process or time.
