CHRISTIAN SCIENCE is precise and demonstrable, because it is based on statements and laws that are fundamental, exact, and unalterable. One of these foundational precepts is the allness of Spirit and the consequent nothingness of that which seems to be matter.
God is Spirit; hence Spirit is All, infinite, omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient. This is the teaching of Mrs. Eddy in her book Science and Health. It is set forth particularly on page 468 in "the scientific statement of being," which begins: "There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all." This position is supported by Jesus' statement to the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well when he declared, "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth" (John 4:24), and in his declaration to his disciples, "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life" (John 6:63).
As one accepts this position as basic and unalterable the next step is unavoidable, that is, to see that the sensations and inharmonies of matter are unreal—illusory states of thought. He now realizes that mankind does not suffer from sick or inharmonious matter; he suffers only from the mesmeric belief that there is matter to be sick or inharmonious. This suggestion of suffering matter is only a belief and can be corrected. As truth is poured into consciousness, the belief in the reality of matter is eliminated, and with the belief goes the sense of suffering or inharmony, for they are inseparable from the belief. Mrs. Eddy sets this rule before us (Science and Health, p. 184): "Belief produces the results of belief, and the penalties it affixes last so long as the belief and are inseparable from it."
The unevangelized human consciousness is not aware of the truth as revealed in Christian Science. Throughout the centuries false theology has wrongly educated this consciousness to believe in the actuality of man as a mortal, separate from God, and to accept the reality of matter, with its so-called laws of finiteness, diminution, and destruction. Having been thus wrongly educated, the human consciousness believes these falsehoods to be fact and, believing them, experiences them.
As it is evangelized, that is, spiritualized, consciousness begins to understand the facts of God and man, and, accepting them, sees them, though at first dimly. Thus the real man of Love's creating begins to appear. As the mists of mortal thought are cleared away, the real man stands out as the only man, eternal with God, His image and likeness, His expression, the witness of His being. This real man, the only man there is, cannot experience sickness or inharmony or lack of any kind, for he expresses eternally the qualities of God, Life, Truth, and Love.
As this truth dawns upon the human consciousness, it brings the realization that sickness, accident, lack, and limitation are but illusions of the unreal mortal mind. These illusions must, of their own accord, disappear as the truth becomes active in consciousness, for error can never maintain itself in the presence of a realization of truth.
From this we see that a healing in Christian Science is not a process of making bad matter turn into good matter, for actually there is no matter. Healing is but a clearer view of true being. This process of purification goes on until thought is purged of all error; then the creation of Love, spiritual and pure, appears in all its glory and goodness.
But someone may say, "How can I believe in the unreality of matter when I see it and its effect all around me everywhere I look?" Here an example might be helpful, one that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is no matter even though there seems to be.
One Wednesday evening a student of Christian Science experienced severe pain in one of his knees. His wife, who did not approve of Christian Science, insisted that he go to a doctor for examination and treatment. The doctor, after an X-ray examination, declared the knee to be fractured and ordered the student home and into bed. He was to stay quiet until the following Monday to allow the swelling to subside, at which time a cast would be applied, and the patient would remain incapacitated for six weeks or more.
This student went home and wrote a letter to a practitioner, telling him of the doctor's verdict. Upon receiving this letter, the practitioner clearly realized the allness of Spirit, and, as a result of this allness, he had a clear realization of the complete non-existence of matter.
This realization was so clear that the practitioner knew there could be no such thing as a fractured knee. He knew that the misstatement, calling itself a fractured knee, was simply a false belief of mortal mind which, of necessity, disappears in the light of the truth. He also knew that there was no mortal mind present, calling itself wife or doctor or patient and insisting on the reality of matter and its inharmonies; that the only presence possible was the divine I, or Ego—God—who is aware only of His own perfection, which man reflects. The patient returned to work on the following Saturday and has continued active ever since.
Here the illusion of a fractured bone was dispelled almost instantaneously. If there were any reality at all in matter, would there not have been a period of convalescence—a time for matter to heal? But there was no matter to heal, only the false belief to be dissipated. So we see that mankind does not suffer from sick or inharmonious matter, but only from the belief that there is matter to be sick or inharmonious—only from the belief that there can be something outside of and besides infinite Spirit.
How grateful we can be to Mrs. Eddy for the revelation that all suffering is an illusion of material sense and for her further assurance that this suffering can be eliminated from human experience as quickly as we accept, without reservation, the fact of the allness of Spirit!
